The Strength of BNI Renaissance Lies in a Strong Tripod (Part 3 of 3)

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.