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How do you measure a group’s worth to your organization?

It is sometimes necessary to measure the value of a group. You may be asking yourself why you would want to measure the value of a group whose purpose is business. You would want to measure the price of membership vs. the business you will get out of the group through either referrals or direct business with members. There are several ways that the measurement can be taken. First, you will need to assess the current membership. You should develop a scale of 1 to 10 and give each member a rating based on a set of predefined criteria. What criteria should you use? That will depend entirely on your goals for belonging to the group. For example, if you are selling services for repairing computers, you may rate members by the number of computers they have at the workplace, and you may also add a factor for who they are currently using on the servicing side. It is best to define at least 3 criteria for a sampling of the members. You will not want to measure every member, but a small cross-section will do. Second, you should measure the amount of business each member (or a sample of members) has received by joining the group. You may also want to know how much business they do with other group members as well.

Once you have the measurements, these same criteria should be applied to each of the groups you are interested in. Next you will want to do a comparison of the groups and then make your selection based on facts rather than emotion.

Now that you have thought out and used a measurement tool for deciding the value of a group, you will want to test as many groups as possible. You may decide to join only those groups that measure in the top 20% of your scale. One thing you may want to consider is the time and place of the meeting. Your calendar must be open and flexible enough to deal with attendance requirements.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people’s attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the “Networking Queen”. Blueprint for Networking Success: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprint for Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2005. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com

In the beginning, when Henry Kravis and his business partner George Roberts established Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co (KKR) in the seventies with the assistance of the First Chicago Corporation, the company’s specialty was in highly leveraged transactions. More recently aiming to make their acquisitions greener, KKR have established a remarkable project that has totally changed the way business concerns and environmental agencies operate. Green business practice became major topic in 2008 when Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co’s Henry Kravis and the the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) joined forces. This coalition was forged to fight a few serious environmental issues, including hazardous waste, soil contamination, immoderate water consumption, and toxic chemical use.

Eco-efficiency (the phrase was originally pitched by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development WBCSD) is the technique deployed to achieve these objectives, through applying policies like reducing the intensity of materials, improving fuel economy through vehicle fleet maintenance and reducing the dispersion of toxic chemicals. Simple and effective, but the firms who were taking part did not grasp the entirety of the project’s benefits until Ken Mehlman, the head of the program and global public affairs, studied the project subsequent to its first year in operation.

Beating everybody’s expectations, Ken learned that practicing eco-efficiency not only served in proctecting the local environment, but also increased the the profit from each and every business organization as well. Virtually all of the commercial organizations affiliated to Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co and Ken Mehlman today practice eco-efficiency. Yet, when you consider that the group has a 2009 portfolio valued at 86,000,000,000 dollars, you can be sure this wasn’t an easy feat. KKR and the EDF in association with Ken Mehlman are developing the original project. The Climate Corps Program set up by the EDF is an example of this, it heightens awareness of planet friendly business techniques to interns studying for an MBA. KKR and Ken Mehlman have been formulating analytical tools that quantify and manipulate various resources. This type of information is crucial as any business may without much effort evaluate their everyday activities and identify where any problems may be solved while at the same time permitting staff to see their impact on the environment.

Today’s business world has been changed by the work of these people. Their developments have simplified the process for organizations in every industry and proved that running a profitable business need not entail the hefty price of negatively impacting our planet.