Toastmasters is like a dojo, a model of the larger world, where members can experiment and can get to know themselves better.

At a any given meeting, the agenda-maker sends out the agenda, and the chair confirms roles, and runs the meeting. On a particular meeting in June, the agenda-maker sent the proposed agenda just 5 days before the meeting, which is not itself a problem, save that the speaking roles were not pre-confirmed. Speaking roles require extensive pre-preparation, and we had a situation where we had only one speaker when we should have had two. By the time I knew this, it was the day before the meeting.

I was annoyed. I suppose the relative importance of Toastmasters went up in my life because I had more free time on my hands.

What I learned was: Move toward a solution as quickly as possible. At any given point in time, you have to start from where you are. The more energy put into wishing the past were a certain way, or berating someone for something in the past, the less is available for looking for a solution.

The better thing to have done would have been to pretend that I had only meant to schedule one speaker, and extended other portions of the meeting to be longer to cover for the loss. What I did instead was to mention the lack of pre-preparation several times.

But now, I know better, and have been making a special effort to praise specific things when they go right. Everybody is happier for it. But I realize that it is harder to praise good actions than to berate for bad actions.

Toastmasters: Learn by Doing.

Posted in Speaking and Rhetoric
No Comments Yet Posted by Jason Yang