The CMI (Chartered Management Institute) is a pre-eminent professional membership organisation, with a rapidly growing community of managers and leaders that stretches around the world.
We’re always amazed at how varied and disparate that community is. CMI members are dentists and firefighters, energy sector executives and heads of software start-ups. They’re retired army veterans, seasoned charity bosses and youngsters enhancing their early career with a management degree apprenticeship.
One thing that unites them all is a desire to be better managers and leaders.
Over the years, we’ve created and published a CMI members’ magazine, its Knowledge & Insights hub and a range of agenda-setting reports. Subjects for the latter include the health of management across the UK, how to walk the talk on diversity and inclusion, and how managers can make a success of hybrid working.
Our most recent initiative was to work with the CMI on the CMI Community Hub newsletter, launched in 2024 to speak directly to CMI members and others within CMI’s orbit, and to reflect their stories. These articles highlight their work and their growth, the major turning points in their career journeys and the key role that continuous learning plays in shaping all of that.
To that end, we spend time listening to members. Regular video interviews are our bread and butter, but our team also get out there and attend CMI events in person – whether that’s getting first-hand experience of the facilities at CMI partner universities such as Exeter and Southampton, where we chat to course leaders and students; reporting on the organisation’s regular events, such as CMI Communities Live, where inspirational panels and individuals share their stories and best practice advice; or attending other CMI-sponsored gatherings, such as the Black Leadership Group’s annual conference.
The through-line of it all: drawing out people’s direct experiences, their triumphs, tragedies and turning points, and honing in on why CMI’s recognition, training and resources matter to them.
The telling part: the CMI community is never short of positive things to say about the organisation and what it’s done for them, their organisations and the teams they lead. We never struggle to find the material to represent the client in the way they deserve. We give these members the floor. It’s our job to capture their enthusiasm.
Of course, this provides CMI with a great shop window for its work. It reinforces the value of its professional accreditation, and serves to showcase the incredible and inspiring people who make the CMI community what it is. This may convince readers to take their next step on the CMI journey, whether that’s becoming Chartered or a Fellow, embarking on a degree apprenticeship, or offering CMI’s courses to their teams.
We’ve found it’s also a hugely valuable moment for those community members to take time out of their day-to-day to reflect on how far they’ve come – and just how important their CMI engagement has been.
Taken together, these profiles, think pieces and event write-ups accumulate to form a larger narrative – one that shows the level of leadership and management talent available to organisations in the UK. It’s a compelling tale of skills, experiences and transformation, in everything from doctors’ surgeries to DIY chains, the armed forces to accountancies.
And at the centre of it all – CMI, with its ongoing commitment to creating better managers and leaders.
By presenting its key messages with this community-first approach, CMI barely needs to toot its own horn at all. Instead, its brilliant members can continue to write the song – and sing it themselves.
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