1. Follow through with what your predecessor started if appropriate.

We need continuity and consistency. If something has been planned and publicized, it is best to continue it.

This applies primarily to static events like a particular activity, but not to continuing events that may or may not be appropriate, necessary, or desirable. Everything needs to be carefully thought through.

2. Meet with your predecessor

In the paper era, people used to meet with the person who held the calling prior, and there was a handover of information and guidance. This doesn't seem to happen anymore.

Meeting with the person can be extraordinarily useful even if no paper records need to be transferred. You need that person's knowledge and experience. Trust me, it is valuable.

Keep that institutional memory going!

3. Read the Handbook

Leadership used to give people with new callings the write-up in the Handbook that related to their calling responsibilities. No more.

YOU have to look up this guidance yourself, and you NEED to do so. One of the best ways to perpetuate problems and mess things up is to continue to do exactly what's been done in the past. If someone did something wrong in the past, continuing to do those same things will continue the wrongs.

Go back to the Handbook and carefully review what you are supposed to do. I know it sounds radical, but you do need to read the instructions. The Handbook contains the instructions for your calling.

4. Review other online guidance

In case you hadn't noticed yet, the Church doesn't "print" much of anything in hard copy anymore. It puts it online and it expects us to use our initiative to digitally access it.

There is a great deal of guidance for callings online. A good place to start is the Church's homepage, where you can select "Serve" and then "Callings." A page entitled "Callings and Training" will provide you with links to most of the standard things we think of as callings.

However, there are glaring omissions. For example, I'm a Ward Building Representative. There is not an obvious link on that page to "Meetinghouse Care" like there needs to be. I had to go looking for it. It's under the Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums, which is a bit of a puzzle.

Another puzzle is where you can find information about being an Interpreter, unless you specifically search the term. Unfortunately, most people call them translators, which makes it impossible to find the instruction and training. This underscores the necessity to use proper terms.

I served as a Ward Website Administrator, now referred to as the Email Communication Specialist (as of the official letter from June 2020). Currently, there is virtually nothing on that calling. My institutional knowledge could supply a great deal if anyone would rely on me, ask me, or believe me if they did.

When my calling/title was discovered by a prior stake Communications Director, she tried to conscript me, probably reacting to the "communications" term. I resisted because I knew my calling was different and under a different authority. Apparently, I offended some people with my reaction. However, I discovered official confirmation in the following:

The responsibilities of the communication council differ from the role of a ward email communication specialist, who helps bishops and branch presidents send messages to members of their units. 

5. Reason things out!

The Church is global. Increasingly, it is supplying us with principles instead of details. We need to reason things out for ourselves based on the unique needs of where we reside and live. Use your own good sense to figure out what is needed. Construct your own details from the principles.

Too often, people are assuming that no initiative is needed, that unless specifically instructed to do something, they don't need to do much of anything. This viewpoint is incredibly damaging and limited. We are instructed to use our initiative:

Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

Actions, activities and events need to be guided by the principles that the Church has laid down. We are expected to internalize these principles and think things through on our own. 

6. Intent versus result 

I've never forgotten this guidance from Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

Sometimes, unintentionally, even certain extracurricular Church activities, insensitively administered, can hamper family life.

I have a little saying for myself that I use to guide what I do. If you are going to take people away from their families and away from their homes, you need to make people more effective when they are with their families and in their homes.

Some of the mindless, social, and craft activities/events at Church fail to follow this little saying's guidance or help bring us closer to Jesus Christ.

Bring People to Christ!

One thing you must remember no matter what calling you have is that the purpose of Church and all church callings is to bring people to Christ.

In a recent address by Elder Renlund, he reinforced what the Relief Society leaders taught:

As President Johnson, Sister Dennis, and Sister Yee just taught us, this organization was not intended to be merely a social club or charitable group. Its purpose was and still is divine. It is to help God’s children return to His presence.

Elder Soares reinforced this in a South American address:

The goal of every activity in the Church should be to help members build faith in the Savior. “We do not operate entertainment centers,” Elder Soares said.

Conclusion

These simple suggestions would solve so much of the confusion, inefficiency, ineffectiveness and ineptness that we deal with in the Church.

The guidance to be effective and efficient in our church administration efforts is there for us to access and implement.

Let's do it!