There are two main types of Toastmasters clubs: community and corporate. Community clubs have open membership; corporate club membership is restricted to employees. Which type should you join if you are fortunate enough to have a choice? What are the advantages and disadvantages of those types?
A press release at PR Newswire on April 26, 2022 titled Fortune 500 Companies Seek Out Toastmasters for Developing Employees’ Soft Skills explains:
“While the workplace landscape has changed drastically in recent years, one thing remains constant: the value employers place on their employees having and continuing to develop effective soft skills. More than half of the 2021 Fortune 500 companies offer in-house Toastmasters clubs to help build and improve their employees' communication, leadership, and public speaking skills.
Apple, Amazon, Ford Motors, Exxon Mobil, General Electric, JPMorgan Chase, Northrop Grumman, Pfizer, State Farm Insurance, and UPS are among industry leaders using the Toastmasters International program to develop and enhance these valuable soft skills as well as the confidence of their employees.”
An article at Toastmaster magazine on February 2023 at pages 14 to 17 by Jennifer L. Blanck titled The Corporate Club Value Proposition: Stronger Than Ever discusses them. A second article by Caren S. Neile on September 2021 (pages 20 and 21) titled Toastmasters Works is subtitled How corporate clubs help both companies and employees. A third article by K. T. Lynn On September 2018 at pages 28 and 29 is titled Common Challenges of Corporate Clubs. A fourth article by Adriana Alxala at LinkedIn Pulse on March 31, 2017 is titled 3 Benefits of Having a Toastmaster Club in Your Office says they are:
1] The only meeting where being perfect isn’t required
2] Everybody has an opportunity to speak and lead in a safe place
3] Become friends of your coworkers
And a 1:44 YouTube video from Toastmasters International titled Dananjaya Hettiarachchi: Three Benefits of corporate Clubs says they are:
1} Helping management understand the art of saying something
2} It has identified specific competencies that are important for specific roles in organizations
3} It gives your employees a safe space to talk about the ideas that they have in their minds
A corporate club can be in a stable and convenient meeting place, where excellent visual aids already are set up for easy use. Contrast that with Pioneer Club, a community club in Boise I belong to, which has met successively at Idaho Pizza, Boise Public Library, Black Bear Diner, and Café Ole.
And in a corporate club you already know some fellow members. Perhaps one can become your mentor.
One disadvantage of a corporate club is a lack of diversity. For example, the corporate style for PowerPoint may not be up to date and heavy with bullet point lists. On February 19, 2014 I blogged about how Assertion-Evidence PowerPoint slides are a visual alternative to bullet point lists.
Another potential disadvantage of a corporate club arises if there is not a large enough employee base to keep on providing new members. At least a couple hundred employees are needed to keep the typical 20 members. A corporate club can fade away only a few years after being formed. Here in Boise there are two very respected corporate clubs at very large employers: Russet Ramblers at Simplot - formed in 2007, and the Dynamic Club at Micron headquarters – formed in 2002. There once was a corporate club at Scentscy in Meridian, but it closed. In contrast, some community clubs survive for a very long time. Boise Club started in 1936 and Pioneer Club started in 1957.
Item 121 from Toastmasters International (August 2023) is a 19-page pdf document titled How to Build a Toastmasters Club. An article by Nibu Thomas at LinkedIn Pulse on November 15, 2021 is titled Moments of Truth – Corporate Toastmasters discusses start-up problems.
The cartoon was adapted from one at Openclipart.
No comments:
Post a Comment