Will it make the boat go faster?

6/7/12

This week I met Ben Hunt-Davis; he was in the Eight (rowing) that won gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. I’m almost 6 foot 2 inches but he made me look small. He was talking at an Entrepreneur’s Circle event about his crazy goal of winning Olympic Gold at 10.30am on the 24th September 2000 and the fact that he had to do it in less than five and a half minutes. That’s some goal!

But two years earlier the crew had a history of being also-rans: sixth in the Barcelona Olympics and they didn’t even make the final in Atlanta. But all that changed when they decided on a common policy for everything they did – ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ They also decided that if they could still stand after the race, but had not won gold, that they would never speak to one another again.

Now this is extreme; winning gold is. But what can we learn from this goal, and this crew, that would help us in our BNI chapters?

Well, for me, two things stood out from Ben’s talk.

First, ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ Was what they were doing going to make the boat go faster? Fighting, letting personalities get in the way, not doing their absolute best in every training session, turning up for training sessions. The answer is blindingly obvious; but they were doing it. As do we all. So, in your chapter, is everything you do ‘going to make your chapter more successful?’

And second, ‘What can I do to make today better than yesterday?’ They had in earlier years put in pretty much the same effort every day, maybe working harder, but without even thinking, like most of us do. But they changed that, so that every day they tried to improve on the last in some way - however small. It didn’t always work, but every day they tried to get better. So again, how can we transfer this to our chapters?

Well, today maybe you only invited one person to your meeting next week, tomorrow you could invite two people. Perhaps your inviting technique could be improved. How could you change it tomorrow? Maybe this week you didn’t put too much effort into your 60 Seconds, well next week you can craft a really useful 60 Seconds, and then next week, improve on it again. Maybe in the last month you have only had two One2Ones, well next month you could have three.

Continuous improvement, like continuous inviting, brings big rewards. It might not win you a gold medal, but how much better would your chapter be?