The Strength of BNI Renaissance Lies in a Strong Tripod (Part 3 of 3)
June 16, 2009 by Phoon Kok Hwa
Filed under BNI Education
Welcome to Part 3 of “The Strength of BNI Renaissance Lies in a Strong Tripod”. In this final instalment, I would like to cover the final leg of the 3-legged tripod supporting a strong BNI chapter – People. While this leg is as important as the other 2 legs- Leadership and System- in building a strong BNI chapter, you will probably realise that without this final leg, the first 2 legs could not have even existed.
When the seeds for BNI Renaissance were first planted way back in October 2006, we set ourselves a simple vision to find and attract good people, which is “To be a magnetic chapter whereby talented and committed people were naturally attracted to be part of us”. The first step is choosing the right team members and getting them to play
together. Attracting talents is important because it is a powerful way to continuously raise the bar and motivate one another to push for our best. As such, talents have to be applauded. But having talented but not committed members will only result in a chapter with very short lifespan. It takes strong commitment from every member to achieve outstanding attendance, punctuality, high referral rate, high visitor rate, etc. In a big chapter, it is easy for the mentality of “it’s ok if I am not around this week because my absence will not be felt anyway” or “it’s ok not to invite visitors this week because other members will bring anyway? to seep in. Judging by the historical
experience of other BNI chapters, once commitment in the chapter starts to take a backseat, it is guaranteed that the chapter will begin on the path of decline.
With talented and committed members, the battle is only half-won. The leader’s job is to harmonise the members. The star shines even brighter in a team than in the individual. Just imagine BNI Renaissance as the Dream Team in US basketball. Each member can be fantastic star, but they also operate very seamlessly as a team. The moment members in our chapter do not play as team and allow individual agendas to set us apart, we will start to fall apart too. Therefore, it is also of utmost importance to build trust among members, especially during a period of fast growth, because at the end of day, we want to be “building ties that bind” (by the way, this is BNI Renaissance slogan).
In conclusion, let us recap again; if you imagine a BNI Renaissance sitting on top of a tripod, our chapter has to be supported by 3 very strong legs, namely: Leadership, System and People. The 3 legs are interdependent and a weakness in any one of the legs will result in the chapter “sliding down”. Last but not the least, a winning chapter will attract winners, thereby further strengthening the chapter.
The Strength of a BNI Chapter Lies in A Strong Tripod (Part 2 of 3)
May 15, 2009 by Phoon Kok Hwa
Filed under BNI Education
1. Learn
2. Do
3. Teach
It is thus the responsibility of every member to learn and know the system, then do what is expected and finally be able to teach the next member on what he has internalised. Along the way, it is also important to continue to innovate so that collectively we build a dynamic system and not a static system.
The Strength of BNI Renaissance Lies in A Strong Tripod (1 of 3)
May 6, 2009 by Phoon Kok Hwa
Filed under BNI Education
Most of you must be wondering what has the success of Renaissance chapter got to do with a tripod? As a chapter, we must be doing something right to be the most magnetic chapter in Singapore. Our modest achievements today is only possible because as a chapter, we have been focussing on building strong tripods. A tripod can only stand firmly when each of its three legs are strong and of equal length. If any of the legs are weak or short, the structure will be unstable or lopsided and whatever sits on top of the tripod will collapse or slide down.
If you imagine the tripod to be supporting the entire chapter sitting on top, the legs has to withstand the weight or we will all be in trouble. And as you know, the weight is increasing week after week.
The purpose of this article is just to share my own observations so that every member of Renaissance can reflect on it. The three legs of a tripod which I am going to share is leadership, systems, members.
1. Leadership
From the time the chapter was set up in 6 June 2007, the founding members have decided and intended to make strong leadership a hallmark of Renaissance. By leadership, I am not only referring only to the Leadership Team, but support committee heads and also power team leaders. The importance of strong leadership in delivering the vision of the chapter cannot be understated. This is especially so today when our chapter is getting bigger and more diversified and members are very talented and each having different agendas. The role of the leaders at all levels is to put the focus of our chapter back to the reason of our existence and to galvanise, motivate and inspire team players to set aside our differences and to shoot for the same goal. History has shown that many a great BNI chapters which had their fair share of glorious days in the past, started on the journey of decline when leaders chosen could not lead their team effectively. If I use the example of the leadership team, many BNI chapters feel that the leadership team is not that important cos’ their role is just to sit at front of the chapter and conduct weekly meeting. The team will carry the baton for 6 months and then another set of leaders will carry on doing the same thing. As such, many chapters failed to put their ablest members or the ablest members did not come forward to serve in the leadership team, only to discover that things started to fall apart and when the decay is allowed to go on for 6 months, trust me, the chapter will never be the same again. Those who have served in Renaissance LT will know that the expectation of serving in the LT is high and the work is never easy. We take pains to go all the way to identify and groom leaders for the LT as part of succession planning. Similarly, whenever committee heads or power team heads are chosen, we have to make sure that they are the best fit for the job. The seriousness we pay towards leadership has to be a tradition of Renaissance to ensure our continued growth for the next 10, 100 years. In fact, this applies to any organisation. As such, it is critical that members can step up when called upon to serve or better still, to volunteer their service in different capacities if they know they have what it takes. This, without a doubt, truly epitomises the spirit of Givers’ Gain.