Page 15 - voices-2025-04

ample of how people seek out education and new ideas. People go to the gym to give our bodies
work outs. Toastmasters is a mental work out - the gymnasium for our mind.

4. Traditional Structure is second to Nurturing Creativity

According to Mr. Brand the younger generation wants meetings “fundamentally social,
fundamentally conversational, and fundamentally less formal.” If this is true it may make
Toastmasters and our very structured meetings a hard sell.

To combat the feeling of rigidity, have some meetings that are just unstructured. Have a
social mixer occasionally. Skip the usual agenda and try out team building exercises you
can find on Google. Allow experimentation within the traditional meeting structure. One
example would be to challenge the Toastmaster to do a “backwards” meeting, starting with the
end reports and working the way back up to the opening introductions. There are endless varia-
tions to the standard agenda.

5. Avoid Short Term Solutions. Seek Team Commitment to Long

Term Initiatives

Most Toastmaster leader positions only serve for one year. With that in mind, think about the
following questions. How long does it take you to learn a new job or acclimate yourself to a new
team? What would your office organization be like if your leadership changed yearly? Is too much
energy being put into elections and transitions that could better be put into reaching other goals?

In the best situations, there is a pipeline of long term committed leaders that gradually move
through positions of increasing responsibility and are prepared to continue the work of the team.
These future leaders have bought into the long-term vision of the district or club. Leadership
within Toastmasters should be like a relay race where the baton is handed off and the next runner
continues running in the same direction.

Imagine any organization that does not have a unified preset goal. A change in leadership can
create annual chaos. New leadership rushes in to create plans, assemble a team, execute and wrap
up within a year in time to train successors and the cycle starts again. A leader’s term may end just
as they were getting good at their role. A truly strong organization will consistently be looking to
train and raise up the next generation of leaders.

6. Be Open to Change

Michael Brand states “It’s not ‘Come do what we do,’ it’s ‘What do you want to do?” Can our club
be an incubator for young creatives to develop new and interesting ways to address our traditional
issues?

One aspect of emerging generations is their desire to have an impact now. It means they will not
wait 5 years to be elected Chair of the Fundraising Committee before seeing their ideas in action. If

Spring 2025 15