China Advanced Toastmasters

Every club has a different atmosphere. Some clubs are serious and strict while others are fun and informal. Some clubs have a ‘tardiness penalty’ or a ‘late fine’ while others hardly ever even start on time. But, along with key members and access to resources, the culture and climate of a club is one of the pillars that define the meeting experience.

• Where are you now?
• What is it like to attend be involved?
• How does it feel to be part of your meetings?

The concept of culture comes from anthropologists who look at culture as including the symbolism, myths, stories and rituals. Someone like Chris Argyris would phrase organisational culture as something like this:

The formal organisation policies and employee needs, values and personalities that operate in a self-perpetuating system of living complexity.

Typically, organisations continue to evolve and improve on the basis of how well they do three things:

1. Continually improve
2. Innovate
3. Deeply understand stakeholder preferences and needs

Being warm and welcoming doesn’t just make visitors and guests feel ‘good’ but it also gives you the opportunity to understand them better so that you can genuinely meet their needs.

Looking for ‘cool ideas’ that you can introduce – like our own Peer Mentoring System and DTM Track, or Leadership Club’s CL evaluation segment – not only evokes interest, but also enables you to deliver creative improvements that deliver a significantly superior user experience.

When you are always looking for how you can do things better, not only do you tend to enjoy your meetings more by removing the barriers and refining the ways you do things, but you are also building a culture that can help you continue to attract members in the years ahead.

To design your way into the future demands that you suspend your critical thinking for a time. Not forever – but at least for a while. It would be great if you could create a vision for how you would love your club to be and then set in place the symbols, stories and rituals – the attributes – that can support your vision. But if that is a little too removed for you, perhaps you might just start with asking yourself,

How would I love things to be?

To me, leaders do just three things: Create value, Execute strategy and Develop people. As a member of any organisation, you are a leader to the extent that you take personal responsibility for making these three things happen.

The rest is up to you.

Daniel Smith, DTM (VPE)