By way of background, twelve months ago, I was asked what I thought of Business Networking International (BNI) as I was a member and at the time it was not working for me as it had been ten years earlier when I was a previous member. I shared my thoughts at the time and arranged for this person to attend a BNI meeting to get an insight. Soon after this person suggested we try and start a networking group ourselves that mimicked the best parts of BNI.

I agreed initially to support my mate by attending both the BNI meeting and this new one on the same day. This worked well in hindsight as it opened a window to contrast from one session to the next. BNI is a great process for a new and established business, as it quickly creates referrals and income, but the downside is the relationship and education are second or third to referrals, which is a contradiction to referring due to the quality of a person or business. The statistic monitoring which ranks you from good to bad members is heavily geared towards referrals and the timeline does not allow for authentic relationships to develop over time.

So, I brought this with me each week, along with my long-standing Critical Thinking practice and learning. Early in these meetings, I was asked to present which I did from a seat in the middle of the room, the first as it became known as the “Love Seat” or my term “Socrates Chair” if you know of and about Critical Thinking. The requirements of the “Love Seat” are that the person sitting in the seat must be Open, Vulnerable, Real, and Trusting of the meeting attendees. The attendees needed to be Respectful, Honest, and Real. The interaction is facilitated to maintain the “Trust” required for all this to work. At the very start what was happening in the “Love Seat”, was not well understood and I championed this understanding as I observed the dynamics, via the Critical Thinking process.

As it became clear we were starting to create something real, with enormous potential, a management team was formed, and I amongst about seven others volunteered. Only five of the seven attended regularly, and three to four were doing the bulk of the thinking and creating.

During this time, I volunteered capital, my time, and significant Intellectual Property via my Critical Thinking. In one of the planning sessions, I was asked what we wanted to do for the enterprise, I said I wanted to be the CEO and part owner with my fellow Co-Founders as we called ourselves. The week after that I was spoken to about being late to our volunteer meeting, by two people who also arrived late from time to time, like I was an employee. I did not raise any issues with this as it may have had value for me to consider. However, I did want to clarify the ownership as the employer/ employee feel did not make me feel good given my input from so early on.

So, we continued and when the time was right, I asked about the ownership structure as bank accounts became needed. What I was told, was you are a co-founder, but not a co-owner, this decision had been made sometime earlier and was not going to change.

So, gullibly I discovered the other three amigos, had deemed my volunteered time to be of no worth, my Intellectual Property of no value compared to theirs. These three characters had no character as they had not been Open, Vulnerable, Real, Respectful, and Honest, and thus could not be Trusted. They had shown themselves to be deceitful, dishonest, and disrespectful. Being left out is not my issue as perhaps I did not offer any value, being left untold is my issue as this had been known for some time, and the opportunity to communicate it had presented many times and the choice was consistently to not communicate. Their CEO chat was the first outward sign of their deceit untold, and I am not the only person they should have shared this with.

Given the networking opportunity key design is around Trust, Openness, Honesty, and Respect, how can it survive when the leaders have not displayed it or don’t have any of it in their dealings with the original seven in the management team?

The importance of Critical Thinking cannot be overstated, all the above is obvious now and was evident then, if all parties Critically Thought about it, it would have happened differently. The three amigos should have asked the question from the “Love Seat”, a place where Critical Thinking is at work. They have and will find a way to justify it in their mind. Thankfully, I have escaped being compromised by their actions and this article ensures I have no bridge to return on, in line with my principles.

In conclusion, I have been disappointed by a good friend and have been excluded from a great networking opportunity based on corrupted thinking and actions. Another demonstration of our inability to truly Critically Think through our issues or another way to look at this is the ability to talk a good game, but unable to play a good game.

Just Being Real…

If you would like to speak more about this, please contact me at 0417097642 or contact me via my Contact Me page.