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We would like to thank Brother Donald G. Grabar, W.M. of
Reedville Lodge #321, A.F. & A.M. of Reed-ville, VA, for this month’s Short Talk
Bulletin. Brother Grabar has compared the Master of a Lodge with an industrial
counterpart in a most interesting and infor-mative way. This article was
prepared from a paper Brother Grabar presented to the 9th Masonic
District Educational Conference in Virginia in October, 1987.
They are simply techniques a person uses in dealing with
people and problems when he is in charge of a group activity. Some of these
techni-ques, or tools, are:
Recognition
Delegation
Hire, fire, promote
Interview
Job descriptions
Decision participation
Goal setting
Scheduling
These are some common management tools. Notice that most of them are people
oriented, because interaction with people is the most im-portant aspect of any
manager’s job.
How can these tools be used by the Worship-ful Master?
First let’s take care of the one tool in the list that he
can’t use, money control. This immedi-ately suggests that the Wor. Master has a
tougher job than his industrial counterpart, because money is one of the most
powerful motivations in existence. Actually this is not the handicap it might
appear, because the people he deals with, principally his officers, are already
highly motivated or they wouldn’t be there. In lieu of salary and bonuses, the
Wor. Master can, and should, substitute recognition, the second tool on the
list.
Recognition
This is a technique used in industry, not always of
necessity, but because it is SO much cheaper.
Have you ever noticed how many vice presidents there are in a bank? Or a
brokerage firm? Used in a positive manner, recognition can be one of the
Master’s most effective tools! For example, when someone in the Lodge helps you
out, or does a good job on some project, that effort should be recognized. A
minimum recognition is a sincere thank you, but a public statement of gratitude
and complimenting him on his deed in open Lodge is much better. A good many of
us would work just as hard without it, but it’s sure nice to know that our
efforts are appreciated by someone.
For outstanding performance special mention can be made at
significant occasions such as an annual Ladies’ Night Dinner. Also there are
cer-tificates of merit available, which put in a frame, make a very nice
presentation. Some Lodges honor a “Mason of the Year” annually with such a
presentation. For really outstanding contribu-tions to a Lodge there is the
tribute of making the man an honorary member.
Don’t underestimate the importance of recognition as a
motivating force. Management ex-perts will tell you that there are many men for
whom money alone is insufficient compensation for their work. Without
recognition a company might well lose their services no matter what their
salary, and so might a Lodge lose a good worker if his contributions are not
recognized.
Without extensive use of this tool the Wor. Master can become extremely frustrated,
and find himself “doing it all”; or at the other extreme, may fail to accomplish
anything. As an example of delegation, the Wor. Master can make a meeting much
more enjoyable and with benefit to his Lodge, if he will delegate someone—
perhaps the Senior Warden, or some other officer—the task of checking arrivals
at the Lodge before the meeting. This will have the benefit of determining
whether all the chairs will be filled by their regular occupants. If an officer
is missing he can round up someone to “pro tem”, and allow the Wor. Master to
greet visitors, and take care of other pre-meeting chores.
Delegation makes any manager, including the Worshipful Master, more
productive, a very popular “buzz word” in industry; and rightly so, because
there it means profits. In the Lodge it means a more profitable or efficient use
of the Wor. Master’s time and energy.
At first reading these tools might not seem to be available
to the Wor. Master, but they are— although not in the same way as they are for
his industrial counterparts. He hires in the sense that he has appointments to
the officer line. Likewise, he can promote and fire by either appointing or not
appointing officers to the next succeeding chair. It has been my observation
that one of the most common problems facing our own and other lodges, is one of
maintaining a strong and continuous line of succession to the East. It is also
my conviction that the most important thing a Wor. Master can do to insure an
unbroken line of succession to the East is to be ruthless in hir-ing, firing and
promoting his officers. He must exercise the utmost care in selecting his
appoint-ments. Try them out in the appointive line and if they do not perform
satisfactorily there, they need not be “promoted” any further. In this way
almost all “firing” can be done at a lower level.
There are also management tools available to assist with
the selection process. It has been my observation that many men who accept a
Chair in the lodge do not really know what they are do-ing! Some are only dimly
aware of what is in-volved in meeting the responsibility of the Chair they have
accepted, and even less knowledgeable as to what might lie ahead of them. This
is especially true when the new candidate for of-fice is a recently raised
Mason, which is becom-ing more common these days than in the past. Before offering an office to a member an
in-terview should be conducted with him. It should be explained to him exactly
what the lodge will expect from him as an officer, and ask for his commitment to
these obligations. If he understands from the beginning exactly what is expected
of him he is much less likely to be a “dropout” from the line at a later date
when dropping out creates a real problem for the lodge. Two principal points should be covered in
the interview:
1. Taking his
first office in the lodge is taking his first step toward becoming the Master of
the lodge. Promotion to the next chair is almost automatic unless he
demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to proceed. If he decides along the
way to drop out he will create a significant pro-blem for his lodge, and do a
real disservice to his fellow officers. Tell him, “Don’t start unless you intend
to continue!”
2. He should
be made aware that he will be called upon for some additional tasks in addi-tion
to taking part in the opening and closing of the lodge.
One way to assign additional tasks is to get the officers
involved with the operation of the lodge.
Ask each officer to accept a collateral assign-ment, in addition to his
duties as prescribed by the BY-LAWS. By giving each officer specific
assignments, not really very time consuming for any one individual, you will
instill the idea that the lodge has a variety of tasks which need to be done,
and how they can be distributed.
Means consulting with your officers before making
decisions. This must be done with discre-tion, however, because most decisions
should be the Wor. Master’s, and not made by popular vote. Nevertheless, input from the officers can
be valuable in arriving at a decision, and can give the officers a feeling of
being part of a team.
Can be very productive, particularly if you can involve the
officers. Most effective is for the manager—the Wor. Master—to set a broad goal
or set of goals, and to ask each officer to set his own goals in support of
them. It is much more effective if you can get the officers to put their goals
in writing.
Scheduling of course is an indispensable tool, and the most
important thing to be said is, “Start early!” The Wor. Master’s term is going to
be much more productive if he has his entire year’s program laid out prior to
the beginning of his term of office. Then, after he takes office, he need only
think about executing his plans. The biggest breakdown in the analogy I’ve been
creating here is that the industrial manager usually has his job for more than
one year, while the Worshipful Master is usually limited to that time frame. If
he doesn’t plan that year well in advance the Wor. Master has little chance of
achieving any goals he might have.
In summary this has been a sampling of the tools used by a
manager in industry. Like many “ideas” that come from a business administra-tion
text, many are recognizable as the common sense type of thing that you should do
in manag-ing your lodge. However, these common sense type of things often
benefit from being con-sidered in a structured manner and I hope by do-ing so
your thinking along these lines will have been stimulated to some degree.
Finally, I would like to leave you with a bit of advice I
once received from my boss, which has stayed with me for years. He told me that
sometimes the best way to lead is to get behind and push! Good advice for the
Wor. Master to remember!