There are three general buckets of organizations to which you can get involved:
Professional: Organizations where you gain continuing education, plus the opportunity to network with peer groups and potential business partners. In the AEC industry, these organizations are plentiful, including AIA, ACEC, SMPS, IFMA, BOMA, SDA, NSPE, ASCE, ALA, IIDA, SAME, AGC, SWE, ULI, CMAA, ICMPA, RIBA , NAIOP, DBIA, USGBC, CREW ….the list goes on and ON.
Non-profit: Organizations span the gamut—from cultural institutions, to philanthropic entities, to everything in between. Some of these give you an opportunity to give back to the community or to people-in-need. Others give you exposure to like-minded people who have passions similar to your own (ie fine art; botany; symphony; opera; theater).
Social: Organizations where the primary purpose is centered around social connections and expanding one’s personal life…though most certainly, these groups are also fantastic ways to do business networking as a secondary endeavor.
We all recognize that we gain benefits from these organizations based upon the level of attention that we are willing to dedicate to them. We know that it’s best to join these groups at a board, committee, or special project level. Once we are active in a role, we are able to prove our own abilities in a myriad of ways: organizational skills, leadership traits, interpersonal relations, creativity, strategic thinking, etc.
Here’s the cool thing. When you are actively involved, you are demonstrating (literally proving, rather than just stating an empty claim about your skill sets and value offerings) your talents in a subtle, but oh-so-powerful, way. You are showing people what you are made of (much like how people sometimes think that playing a round of golf will give you a feel for the person’s sportsmanship and overall personality).
If people see your talents in an outside-of-work, extracurricular context, they are likely to:
1. Both respect and like you, period.
2. Want to do business with you.
3. Think of you before they think of others (top-of-mind).
4. Refer to you others with pleasure.
I have several personal success stories (plus the stories of colleagues) where scoring an ‘A’ in extracurricular involvement garnered highly fruitful professional rewards.
So my question for you, dear readers, is this: What grade do you deserve for your extra curricular organizational involvement? And second, if you are dissatisfied with your self-grade, what are you going to do to improve it?
