By Roy Snell
roy.snell@corporatecompliance.org
I get told all the time that we should pick speakers, committee members, board members, etc. based on name recognition. I am told that if the Board isn’t filled with big name people it will negatively affect our growth. I believe that SCCE/HCCA picks good leaders that are committed to the profession rather than pick people based on their money, title or influence. And that has resulted in significant growth. But how do you prove that? The growth is easy to prove and has been well documented. We can test the theory that big name board members drive membership by looking at the number of unique visitors to our website and seeing how many of them have visited the board page. If it’s all about name recognition, then most of the people coming to the website would open the page that lists the Board and look at their names. So here are the actual stats:
HCCA Website HCCA-INFO.org 2015 visits
Total Unique Page Views – 1,835,150
Unique visitors Board Page- 2,557 (0.139%)
SCCE Website Corporatecompliance.org 2015 visits
Total Unique Page Views – 1,031,413
Unique Visitors Board Page- 2,313 (0.224%)
About 2 out of every 1000 unique visitors to our websites visited the Board page. We can’t assume that those who looked at the board page looked at it to determine whether or not to join or become involved. There are lots of other reasons to look at the board page. Some people that look at the board page are already members. Staff looks at the board page for reference information. Let’s assume 10% of those who visit the board page do so to determine whether or not to join our organization. If that is true, then about 2 out of every 10,000 people base their decision to become involved on who our board members are. In other words 9998 of 10,000 people who come to our website value something else more than the notoriety of our board members. Although it appears people don’t become members based on who is on our board, everyone is affected by our board’s contribution, actions, and decisions. That’s why this organization picks board members based on their ability rather than their nobility.
Groups, societies, teams, businesses, etc. are more successful if everyone in their population has a chance to flourish. If you develop a class system and say only certain people can have certain opportunities, you limit your pool of people to pick from. Civilizations have limited their pool of people for leadership roles forever. If the pool of people you select talent from is limited by skin color, blood line, connections, beauty, money, influence, nobility, etc. you will limit the success of the society, team, business or in our case… professional association. We let all people take a shot at contributing in some way. If you are from a small company, have a blank resume or live in a country far away from our home office, you can still contribute. When we select people to get something done… all 16,000 members are available for selection. Who wins when you limit the pool of contributors… the small pool of people. Who wins when you don’t limit the pool of contributors… all of us.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Who wins when you don’t limit the pool of contributors… all of us @RoySnellSCCE” quote=”Who wins when you don’t limit the pool of contributors… all of us” theme=”style3″]
A very interesting posting…to include an interesting theory. One genuine opportunity I see is for people to share and compare and contrast their own theories as the one posted.
For example, when it comes to the impact on growth related to an organization – HCCA/SCCE or otherwise – what I will call the “Big Name” theory (my apologies to George Lemaître and Fred Hoyle) – I do believe that there is reason to believe that there could on some level the potential that having Big Names on the Board, committees, or otherwise that people might be familiar with…(remember, BIG is a relative term so just some level of familiarity might be enough to qualify as a BIG name in someone’s mind)…could have or make a positive impact on the growth of an organization.
For example, if someone was looking to decide whether to join organization A or B, recognizing a familiar name or “Big Name” could easily be the tipping factor.
The other aspect that I think gets overlooked is understanding or recognizing why someone may be seen as a “Big Name”. If someone’s Big Nameness is attributable to his or her material or recognized contribution to an industry or discipline…I think this certainly could be a determining factor.
Again…I am not saying that people who are not Big Names can’t be as effective in promoting an organization and its growth, I am simply pointing out that there certainly is something to be said how Big Names may also accomplish the same end which may be on some level be connected also with their Big Nameness.
Thank you, Roy! Empowering all members to share their experiences is what HCCA/SCCE is all about. This organization is about making everyone successful in the compliance profession.
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