I caught up with a fraternity brother last weekend. We were reliving the glory days and were discussing how successful our friends (both fraternity brothers and independents) in college became. And a strange realization happened.
We noticed how it wasn’t our friends with the highest GPA’s that were the most successful.
We had always assumed that would be the case. Truth is, that seemed to have very little bearing on who became successful.
So who were the successful ones?
We realized that the guys who became the most successful were the guys with strong leadership and social skills.
The stronger those skills were, the more successful the person became, regardless of GPA.
Then we did the math. These guys made at least $30,000 more than the guys without those skills.
Assuming that your working career is 35 years, that is over a million bucks.
We then discussed how valuable the education we received in the fraternity house was to our future careers.
How can you learn leadership and social skills?
The fact is that a fraternity is the best place on a college campus where you can learn leadership and social skills.
No where else will you have such responsibility with such little oversight.
No where else will you have to work with a bunch of stubborn guys to achieve a common goal.
If you can be successful in this environment, then you can be successful in the corporate world.
Remember this during recruitment. Explain to your recruits that the fraternity will teach them skills they can’t learn in the classroom.
Let them know they are making an investment in the future. Then step back, and feel comfortable that you have made that investment in yours.