The Importance of Honoring Your Leaders

At heart, I’m a history buff. Not in the usual way of reading all the books available on the civil war or some other major event, but in the thought of the old cliché, “if we don’t understand history, we are doomed to repeat it.” I also believe that history in organizations can help create a culture that is equally important to those organizations. Some of the simple things that we do day in and day out to recognize our volunteers can set a beautiful culture that CSI needs.

Awards are incredibly important to any volunteer organization. We cannot pay our members and leaders for their work, so giving thanks and recognition is the best way we have of acknowledging their work and honoring their accomplishments. Many of the awards that we give out either locally, regionally or nationally are named after the leaders that made CSI the great organization that it is today. I think we can all learn something about where our organization came from and where it should go by learning about these leaders. One of the best ways to do that is to review the Honors and Awards Guide for the criteria of these awards. In those criteria are information about who these leaders were and why they are important to CSI.

You may think that these national awards are out of your reach. You may think that toiling at the chapter level would not equate to these honors. You would be incorrect in that assessment, but there are many other ways that the work you do every day can translate into a national award. Two specific awards come to mind: The Communications Award and the Outstanding Chapter Commendation.

Traditionally, the Communications Award has gone to the editor or committee in charge of a chapter’s or region’s newsletter, web site or other periodical communications sent to the chapter or region membership. However, for several years, the award criteria has included electronic communications such as “email communications, social media, blogs, websites, contests, webinars and eClasses.” Many new and long time leaders are now using social media, blogs and other electronic communications in exciting ways to get the message out about CSI. Don’t these leaders deserve national recognition?

The other area that leaders can participate in the Institute awards program is the Outstanding Chapter Commendation (OCC). The OCC was created as a reward for the hard work that chapters are doing daily on behalf of their members and CSI. It can also be used as a gauge for what administrative tasks and other activities chapters should be doing to best support their members and the goals of CSI. Several regions have adopted the OCC forms for use in their annual chapter reports.

With over 140 chapters nationally, it might surprise you that less than 40 chapters annually nominate themselves for the OCC. It might further surprise you that the vast majority of these chapters earn the OCC each year. In the past few years, the Awards Committee has worked hard to simplify the process and the forms so that every chapter has the opportunity to fill out the forms and nominate themselves for this great award. I can speak from experience of the power that winning this award can have on a chapter.

Several years ago, our chapter had never nominated ourselves for the OCC. While chapter president, I decided to give it a shot. To my surprise and delight, we won the OCC both years I was president. That was FY2007 and FY2008 and we have won the OCC each year since then, except one. The one year we didn’t win was because of a miscommunication that led to us missing the deadline.

I can say with certainty, that winning the OCC five out of six years has made all the difference in the world in our chapter leadership. We feel more confident in our work and what we’re doing to support CSI in our area. We have also started some new initiatives based on the categories in the OCC criteria. While we don’t always make it, each year we strive for a perfect score to ensure that we not only win the OCC each year but that we are best serving our membership and the construction industry in our area.

That, in a nutshell, is one of the great things about an awards program. Recognition can be a powerful motivation to people seeking to do their very best.

Make sure to download the 2014 Honors and Award Guide (PDF) at www.csinet.org/HAGuide.

The deadline to submit nominations for the FY14 CSI Honors & Awards program is 5:00 PM Eastern, May 2, 2014. Recipients will be recognized at CONSTRUCT & The CSI Annual Convention in 2014. Submit your nomination at www.csinet.org/awards.