President's Message -The Power of One
Kevin Vaughn
A few years ago, the US Army had a recruiting advertisement talking about the "Army of One". I thought it was an interesting way to recruit new members, considering I'd always associated the word "army" with many people working together to achieve strategic and tactical objectives, not a single individual.
There are probably many parallels to be drawn between our organization and the US Army, but that's not the point of this article. What I'd like to address here is a slight variation of the theme...what I call the "Power of One."
Each of us belongs to the professional, volunteer organization we call CSI, a group made up of many individuals with varying roles within the Puget Sound construction industry. As a group, sometimes it's easy just to show up, blend in and enjoy the show, but is that the best approach for those of us interested in making the most of our membership?
The question each of us should ask ourselves is how can we, as individually, tap into this Power of One for the benefit of our organization?
Here are just a few ideas:
1)
Print out and/or forward the invitation for our monthly meeting to your colleagues and contacts.
How many of us have an impressive collection of great contacts in the industry? Why not reach out to these contacts with a personal invitation to attend the next event? It's one thing to ignore an invite from a group email platform such as Constant Contact, but it's another thing to ignore a personal invite from a trusted contact!
2)
Step up into an active member role.
We need people who have talents that can benefit our organization in ways that don't take too much time, but can make a big difference. A few examples are: photographing and videotaping chapter meetings and events, editing the video, contributing to our social media presence on various platforms, or joining a committee and helping with various tasks and initiatives. There are tons of small jobs and projects that need to be completed to make our organization successful and we need active members to help make it happen. Look forward to an invitation to the upcoming lunchtime CSI Volunteer Recruitment Event on November 15th!
3)
Make a point of showing up.
This is probably one of our organization's biggest challenges- simply getting our members to attend events on a consistent basis.
We are hovering around 150 members right now, but we typically see a turn around of 30, which is fairly small percentage. If half of our members attend events regularly, we will see attendance double from our current average.
4)
Encourage a colleague(s) to join this chapter.
This is where the Power of One can really come into play for our chapter: if each of us made the effort to get just one person to join, we'd double the size of our organization. Imagine if reps included a membership flyer with their sales literature on every call, or if professional members of larger firms organized a CSI Open House over breakfast, lunch, or Happy Hour in the conference room of their firm once each year... Simple things like this would make a big difference!
What's abundantly clear is that the Power of One can make a huge difference in our organization if we each take the initiative and apply it for the benefit of the chapter.
One last thing, please don't forget about our upcoming event on November 7 featuring McMenamins and Andersen Construction. It's a joint meeting between PSC CSI and the PNW ICRI chapter.
May the Power of One be with you!
