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Quick Links The Masonic Builders Builder Articles, Links & Resources Commitment to Excellence |
COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE (CE) Home Page Last Updated: February 24, 2006 (As of 1/18/07 - New changes to be added ASAP) What Is Commitment To Excellence? Lodge Organizational Development. Commitment to Excellence (CE) is - in short - an integrated leadership/management curricula and series of facilitated workshops to help individual Masonic Lodges improve themselves should they wish to do so. CE is concerned with facilitation and guidance to assist individual Lodges to better deliver the Core Principles of Freemasonry to their specific communities. While sponsored by the Grand Lodge of Arizona, CE is a grassroots movement - Lodge improvement and excellence results not from a top-down one-size-fits-all boiler-plated template, but organically grows and blossoms from individual Lodge efforts adapting basic leadership/management principles to fit their unique circumstances. Voluntary Participation and No Cost to Lodges To Participate. While the Grand Lodge of Arizona approves and provides a small operating budget for CE, it is not a mandatory Grand Lodge Program. The operating budget covers all costs for educational expenses - Books and Supplies. Facilitator time is donated to the CE effort. Facilitators Are Selected Based on Skills versus Masonic Office or Title. In fact, no official Grand Lodge Line Officer may be a facilitator for CE - since their time is fully committed elsewhere. The CE Committee is entirely composed of Lodge PMs, Sitting Masters, other Masonic Brothers, and for the first time in 2006, selected DDGMs. CE Facilitators are chosen based upon their teaching and facilitation abilities coupled with expertise and experience in organizational planning and implementation. Commitment - What Does it Mean? The operative word in CE is, Commitment! The CE Committee seeks individual Lodges who realize that the survival of Masonry depends upon improving the current effectiveness and efficiency of the Lodge. Further, they realize that - Lodge-by-Lodge and year-by-year - Arizona Masonry can be restored. The target is to begin to practice the True Principles of Masonry in all of our Lodges. Excellence - What Does it Mean? It has been said that, Good is the enemy of Great! When an organization is Good, they often are in a comfort zone. If comfortable, they simply get-along. But, continuously the world changes around the organization and one day the organization no longer fits with its environment. So, the goal of CE is: Good Lodges to Great Lodges to Enduring Great Lodges. Innovation By Renovation. CE believes that Lodges can Preserve their Core Values/Principles while Simultaneously Adapting to Change. Innovation and Change are words that often generate Masonic controversy - at least until they are fully understood. Innovation often connotes Change. Renovation connotes Restoration of something already existing - even if that something is in a state of disrepair. Innovating or changes resulting to a restoration of who we say we are - our core Masonic Principles - is in reality- Renovation. Thus, CE believes that by going Back-to-the-Future or practicing (in the future) the Masonic Principles of the past, we can restore our beloved Fraternity. CE intends to help guide individual Lodges - voluntarily wanting to begin this journey - to once again rigorously Walk-the-Talk of Masonic Principles - those principles plainly spelled-out by our Ancient Charges. The Focus of the Commitment to Excellence Committee CE's Guiding North Star CE Mission. The Commitment to Excellence (CE) Committee provides facilitation and educational support to individual Arizona lodges in planning and implementing their delivery of Masonic Core Values. CE Vision. In five years, CE Committee will have delivered Lodge planning training to 75% of Arizona Lodges. 50% of these lodges will be actively engaged in practicing CE principles. Commitment to Excellence will be recognized by Arizona Masonry as an effective vehicle for the restoration of Masonry in Arizona. CE Strategy. The CE Committee will accomplish its mission by guiding each individual lodge’s CE Leadership Team in customizing and developing its own: Lodge Self-Evaluation of current status, demographics, and other vital operating signs. Lodge Mission/Vision/Strategy. Lodge Annual plan for achieving and fulfilling their Strategic goals and objectives. Lodge performance metrics for measurement of success. Lodge development of a Leadership Culture - Ongoing Planning succession. Lodge annual re-evaluation and re-forecast of its long-range strategy. Lodge planning for continuous quality improvement of its performance - each year will build upon the success of the previous year - The CE Committee will assist as consultants if requested by the Lodge.
Potential Value-Added Benefits To Lodges Completing CE
Disciplined People
Leadership:
Development; Succession Planning; & Crossover Benefits to
Job/Career.
Membership:
Involvement; Receipt of Value; and Increased
Quality/Quantity.
General: Knowledge Transfer among Brothers working in concert with one another for clearly defined purposes.
Disciplined Thought
Mission/Vision:
Clearly Articulated Statement of Masonic Purpose & Vision
Strategic/Tactical Planning:
Focused Application of Lodge’s Resources to Accomplishing Desired
Goals – with Identification of Lodge’s Strengths and Weaknesses.
Financial:
Long-Term Financial Plan and Independence.
Disciplined Action ( Guided
by and Based on Core Tenets of Masonry - Leading to continuously
improving Masonic Brothers - to improved community, to improved society,
and to an improved world)
Brotherly Love:
Actions that recognize that all humans come
from the same source. This is taught in the Wisdom of the Ages
and is more recently substantiated by DNA mapping ( See the National
Geographic/IBM Project:
The
Genographic Project. Masons actively embrace this fraternal and
community reality to recognize and realize the Brotherhood of all
Mankind.
Relief: Actions
to reduce and lessen all impediments or resistances holding-back our
members’ & community’s ability to pursue higher purposes and/or to
develop their potentials. These
impediments include lack of basic survival needs, need for love
and respect from others, educational needs, and so forth. Masonic
actions must be in the business of helping society's members to reducing
factors that stop or impede the ability for people to improve
themselves.
Truth:
Actions that direct humans
toward the Truth of human existence - simultaneous living in a
spiritual world and a material world. Paradoxically,
human beings must BALANCE both Inner/Internal /Spiritual Realities and
Outer/External/Material Realities. Intentional Masonic actions can
help the Brotherhood of Man to do this.
Three Levels of Commitment to Excellence Click Here to Go to Full Description of Three Levels OR Click Here to See Model Schematic of Entire Three Level CE Timeline All Lodges vary in their present state of organizational development, resources ($'s and manpower), and available time to commit to a focused effort of significantly working to improve their Lodge. Recognizing this and, at the same time, wanting all Lodges to have an opportunity to participate in Commitment to Excellence, Three Levels of participation have been designed. Each Lodge will voluntarily decide to participate at one of these levels or not at all. The choice is completely voluntary. Similar to 1st Degree, 2nd Degree, and 3rd Degree, CE is a progressively advancing curriculum. There are three levels of CE participation implemented over two (seven month) years - Here's a brief description along with planned timelines: Year One - Effectively Seven Months: September & October plus January through May. Notes: (1) Why seven months? November and December are down times for holidays and Lodge elections - June, July, and August are set aside for the CE Committee to renew itself. (2) Exceptions to the first year timeline – Some Lodges have a late entry into the first year of CE Program; consultation with a CE Committee facilitator may determine that this Lodge could accelerate the 1st & 2nd Levels – completing both in one half of the first year. 1st Level - Do We Need Improvement? Here a Lodge is first interested in CE, but not yet ready to commit to the full CE Program. However, they do want to investigate the CE program. They: (a) Sign a CE Agreement, (b) Form a Lodge CE Leadership Team – Composed of SD and lower in Progressive Line*, (c) Complete the a Situation Analysis (Lodge Self-Audit Questionnaire), and (d) Agree to meet with a CE Committee facilitator to assess the questionnaire results and decide if they want to progress to 2nd Level. Months for 1st Level Work: September, October, January, & February. * Note: Initially forming in September, the Lodge CE Leadership Team should be composed of at least five members and hopefully, no more than seven members. Ideally, the team will be composed of the Progressive Line with no officer higher than SD: At the end (May) of the two year CE program, this beginning SD will be the sitting SW and now prepared to with his Annual Tactical Action & Implementation Plan for his election to WM in the following Fall. The preceding is an ideal situation: (a) The Lodge begins the CE program on the standard timeline and (b) the Progressive Line all buy-in to CE. The key to setting up Lodge CE Leadership Teams is to forecast who will be the sitting SW in May when 3rd Level ends and do team members have Fire-in-the-Belly – have a burning passion to move the Lodge forward to excellence. 2nd Level - Building a Guiding North Star. Here the Lodge CE Leadership Team designs a long-range plan for the Lodge. From work completed in the 1st Level, the team has reviewed the current condition of their Lodge - from the Situation Analysis. Here the Lodge looks out to the future to dream and forecast where they want to be. Should the Lodge CE Leadership Team decide that they need to progress further, they may elect to progress to 3rd Level. Months for 2nd Level Work: March, April, & May. Year Two - Effectively Seven Months (Like Year One,): September & October plus January through May. Note: Again, November and December are down times for holidays and Lodge elections - June, July, and August are set aside for the CE Committee to renew itself. 3rd Level - Part One: Annual Plans & Performance Actions/Outcomes/Measures. Here the Lodge CE Leadership Team develops an annual tactical plan. Completed by the end of February, the current SW (hopefully with an Annual Plan to hit the ground running when he most probably is elected to the East the following fall. Months for 3rd Level – Part One Work: September, October, January, & February. 3rd Level - Part Two: Leadership Culture and Continuous Quality Improvement. Here the Lodge CE Leadership Team is concerned with implementation and execution of its annual tactical plans. Additionally, it develops a culture that will keep the planning process moving forward in future years – beyond the first year annual plan. Having a continuously renewing Lodge Leadership culture has a strong chance to eliminate the King-for-A-Year syndrome now plaguing many of our lodges. Together the Lodge’s Leadership Team - WM by WM – will systematically build upon each previous year's success. This new leadership culture will continuously move the Lodge forward toward excellence. Months for 3rd Level – Part Two Work: March, April, & May. Connections and Affiliations? Is Commitment to Excellence (CE) connected or affiliated with The Masonic Builders (the host of this website)? This program is solely designed and administered through the Grand Lodge of Arizona. It is not affiliated with The Masonic Builders by any formal legal ties. However, there is a content and logistic connection: (a) Both CE and the Builders share much of the same course content, (b) Many, but not all, of the CE teachers and managers also teach and manage for The Masonic Builders, and (c) The Masonic Builders has donated the hosting of this web site to the Arizona Grand Lodge. Want A More Complete Understanding of Commitment to Excellence?
Click Here for Site Map to navigate the CE Web Site. |
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