Toastmasters calls and campaign team talks

Over these past months I’ve had lots of calls with Toastmasters leaders exploring what is going well, what could be better and how we can improve.  In one of those conversations we talked about ways of developing strategies together and I was reminded of an old strategy framework I used in the past.

As I revisited that old strategy today, and having talked about it with my wonderful campaign team, we’re all finding it a bit overly complicated.  I realise that, actually, we can break this down into a simple three-step strategy:

• considering what we are doing today,
• imagining what we could be doing tomorrow in the future,
• and the transforming steps that we need to go through in order to get from here to there.

Today

There are things that will be doing today that I believe we will continue to do long, long into the future. For example, even if our education system changes enormously in the next five years, there will still be content related to how to deliver a great speech. But there are other things that we may not be doing. Perhaps we could have fewer limits on the content that we have, and more languages we deliver in.

Even if we focus on how we improve what we have today, much of the organization’s energy and attention still needs to go on ensuring that what we have today works well.   This requires stewardship by the Board, a watchful eye on ensuring we are serving our members today.

Tomorrow

The Board’s job is also to lead the way on creating the future. When we imagine what we will be doing tomorrow, lots of possibilities arise. Possibilities around expanded content developed by teams of members, around new platforms like apps on our phones and working with huge audiences in virtual reality, around recognition for contributions in club meetings and unique leadership roles.

I recall a past president of Toastmasters saying once “There is no shortage of ideas!”. The question is, once we have worked through all those ideas and have decided on our focus, how do we get there?

Transformation

Therefore, the key opportunity with strategy is to determine how we transform to take us from today through to tomorrow.  Here, I think, is where the fun comes in!  Here are some possibilities that energize me;

• we could involve members in content development and translation which helps us draw in expertise and reduce the cost and time needed to do that work
• we could investigate yesterday’s old education system to work out which aspects are most missed by members, and find ways to feed them into the program of tomorrow
• we could include younger members to help us develop content that has a clear employability impact and works on platforms that they tend to use
• we could explore partnerships that can help us bring our content into new platforms and develop pilots to offer content commercially. This has the added benefit of generating more revenue which in turn provides investment for more improvements

Bringing Strategy Alive and Creating Tomorrow

When we take care of today, imagine tomorrow and put in place tangible activities to help us transform to bridge from today to tomorrow, this is when strategy comes alive.

It’s thinking through these kinds of possibilities that makes me energised about how I might play my role in serving our organization and our members.

Having been a charity CEO and head of customer service in multiple spaces, I’m experienced with providing the services of today. Having worked with organisations to develop their future strategies and taught MBA strategy, I’m experienced with envisaging tomorrow. And having been a change consultant who has written and led university courses in project management, I have deep experience in leading transformation.

When I imagine a time in the very near future where I am serving as International Officer, I will welcome the opportunity to offer this experience and energy.

So we can bring about tomorrow together.