Your institute needs you

On the 17th of this month Chris Blythe will celebrate his fourth anniversary as chief executive of the CIOB. He's in a bullish mood. Finances are sound, membership is growing, and Council has approved his Corporate Plan.

It's fair to say that other institute chiefs may not feel quite so bullish. The RICS has been convulsed by a group of QSs who feel unloved and who are being wooed by a rival body. The ICE, snubbed at the door by three other engineering bodies deep in marriage negotiations, has since been hoping other construction institutes will come out to play.

But Blythe is bullish. So bullish, in fact, that he went to Council with his Corporate Plan, which contained the sorts of things that would have had him hounded out the door four years ago. This Plan amounts to a manifesto of root, leaf, and branch overhaul. He wants a leaner, meaner, democratic machine.

"Go right ahead," Council said, thus paving the way for, among other things, their own removal from office.

In the next three years Blythe plans to give rank-and-file members more say in what goes on. At the moment 24 of the 45 Council members are there because they've been elected chairmen of the local branches.

But what's so un-democratic about that? The answer is that hardly anyone shows up to branch AGMs, says Blythe. He reckons fewer than 400 members elected the current cohort of branch chairmen.

"People become branch chairmen for different reasons, not necessarily because they want to sit on Council. People who want to sit on Council should be able to go straight there."

So, he would prefer to see elections fought among people who've been nominated to lead the CIOB, and who are hungry for the role. "It used to be that the branch network threw up leaders. That will be the exception, not the rule, going forward," he said.

So what's going to happen? When will the CIOB be holding general elections to appoint a more democratic council? Don't hold your breath. A working group will explore the options and report next October.

"It seems like a long time," Blythe said, "but this is a big decision and we need to lay the proper foundations."

Not only does Blythe envisage a more democratic corporate government, he really wants a more efficient one. One of the goals in the Plan goes simply: "To do in one year what currently takes two."

Now under the spotlight come the boards and committees, which many feel to be the heart and soul of the CIOB, the experienced, committed men and women who donate their time to defining and maintaining the CIOB's standards. The problem, as Blythe has articulated and Council has agreed, is that they suffer from blurred focus and poor co-ordination of activities. This makes the CIOB sluggish. The remedy is something the CIOB ought excel at: project management. Blythe wants to review the board and committee structure to improve co-ordination, write a work plan for each committee and board and make them accountable for their performance.

I’m not going to lower standards. I’m not going to wreck your institution

Chris Blythe

Blythe is keen not just to make CIOB government slicker and more responsive to the will of the people; he also wants to bring in more people by making it easier to get membership.

This is the controversial notion of separating membership from qualification. He says there are plenty of people out there who would welcome association with the CIOB but who don't want to become Chartered Builders. Take lawyers and academics, for instance.

"It could be seen as a cynical attempt to get more members," Blythe admits. "And yes, that would be a good reason to throw it straight into the bin. But I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't raise it."

What do we stand for?
It's not that wacky anyway, he adds. The RIBA does it, and so does the Institution of Electrical Engineers. The ICE is also exploring the idea. He knows he's on sensitive territory here. It's the integrity of the CIOB qualification, after all. But he's adamant.

"Please, members, trust me," he says. "I'm not going to lower standards. I'm not going to wreck your institution."

These are ambitious projects and many will support them, but they'll fail unless a more fundamental question is answered soon: What is the CIOB?

Is it just the professional home of the construction manager or is it something more like the institute for management in the construction industry?

"I ask 10 different people what the CIOB means to them and I get 10 different answers," Blythe maintains.

So it's time the CIOB decided. The days when everyone was free to write his own definition are over. A "prospectus" will be written, a document one can produce that says what the CIOB is. It's time to sing from the same hymn sheet. It's time for everybody to get "on message".

For Blythe, getting this done is key to raising the CIOB's profile. The CIOB will spend £350,000 on profile-raising initiatives in 2004, up from roughly £100,000 last year and £30,000 the year before. He'll also encourage a strategy of using local links rather than expensive media campaigns. But money and clever strategies can go only so far. Until everybody knows exactly what they're promoting, the message will be weak and divided.