Summary: Synopsis A member recently asked Dr. Misner why you canât belong to two BNI chapters or two groups like BNI. This is a more important issue than people realize at first. In 1985 and 1986 BNI allowed members to belong to two groups. It was a DISASTER. The Board of Advisors received floods of complaints from members. The divided loyalties of members who belonged to more than one group created serious trust issues in both chapters. A few years later, a member asked why BNI members were allowed to belong to organizations that competed with BNI (other referral networks) if they werenât allowed to belong to two BNI groups, since that created the same problem of split loyalties. The only person who benefits from being in two groups is that individual member. The other members of the groups benefit more from having all their members fully committed to them. If youâre not sure that belonging to competing groups is a bad idea, the next time youâre at your BNI meeting, look to your left. Look to your right. Imagine those people are in another BNI chapter with your profession represented in it. Who is going to get the referrals? Leave a comment and tell us how you would feel in this situation. Brought to you by Networking Now. Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 250 - Priscilla: Hello everyone and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, CA. I am joined on the phone today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan. How are you today? Ivan: I am doing great, Priscilla, and I have an interesting topic. Priscilla: Okay. Tell us about it. Ivan: When is two not better than one? Two of everything is always better, right? Priscilla: More is better, right? Ivan: Well, not on this topic. I was recently asked a question by a BNI member as to why we can't belong to BNI chapters or why we can't belong to two groups like BNI. Here is sort of an edited version of my response. I hope this is of value to BNI members as to why this policy exists. There is really a long history relating to this issue, and it's important to frame the reason why this is such an important issue. The reason for framing it is that people don't really care about the how until they understand why. Once they understand why it makes more sense as to how to do something. Here is why you can't be in two BNI groups or two groups like BNI: In 1985 and 1986, we actually allowed members of BNI to belong to two BNI chapters. Did you know that? Priscilla: No, I had no idea. Ivan: You could. You could belong to two groups. It was a disaster. It was a huge disaster. There were so many complains that when I created the board of advisers in 1986- remember this is created of BNI members- one of the first things they did was vote on this policy that I had created that you could belong to two BNI chapters. They thought it created animosity among members because a BNI member was splitting his or her loyalty between the two BNI groups. Back then, there were more complaints among members on this one issue than any other issue in the organization, including attendance. Priscilla: That makes sense. Ivan: In retrospect, everything is 20/20. When I look at this, I think that was a really dumb idea that I had. There were some stipulations. They couldn't be side by side. They had to be a significant distance from each other, but it was really all irrelevant. It all came down to split loyalties. The answer seemed really obvious to the board of advisers. Allowing someone to belong to two BNI chapters split their loyalties and created serious trust issues in the affected group. So one of the very first policies that the board created was that you can't belong to two BNI groups. Now fast forward a few years.
