Very successful chapters occasionally go through phases when referrals decline, absences increase and numbers start to dwindle a bit… this can be a real concern, particularly if your chapter is a valuable source of business for you.
It may be that people in your chapter have simply become pre-occupied and comfortable. Weekly chapter meetings are now a habit and a routine and the excitement has gone (maturity has a way of doing that).
If that’s the case, it’s time to rekindle the old fire by setting some fresh aspirations and new goals – show your fellow members what’s possible when they work together as a team.
A good tactic is to dust off, or implement from scratch, a ‘Thank You for Closed Business’ reporting programme. You may do this by:
- Fixing a ‘Thank You for Closed Business’ reporting minute or two for each meeting. Remind people they are there to make money.
- Setting lucrative financial goals for the chapter. A weekly focus on the money may help remind members that their chapter is a valuable source of hard currency.
In a 2011 meta-analysis, called ‘The effect of goal setting on group performance’, (Kleingeld, Ad; van Mierlo, Heleen; Arends, Lidia Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 96(6), Nov 2011, 1289-1304. doi: ) researchers concluded that “egocentric individual goals, aimed at maximising individual performance, yielded a particularly negative group-performance effect”.
However, “groupcentric goals, aimed at maximising the individual contribution to the group’s performance, showed a positive effect – meaning that group goals have a robust effect on the group’s performance”.
When your chapter works together and works as a team – rather than individual incentives and targets – everybody wins.
The study concluded that the keys to boosting the performance of the group are goals that are:
- Specific
- Difficult
- Group centric
A ‘Thank You for Closed Business’ chapter goal programme is particularly suitable because it ticks all the boxes – specific, difficult and group focussed (not individual focussed).
The result is that everybody benefits.
Ask your regional director for more information about the programme.
