The other night I was flipping through my television channels and happened upon an old episode of Superman. Those of you who follow the comics know that Superman is really Daily Planet reporter, Clark Kent. Clark Kent coined a phrase. Anytime that he was out researching a story and saw evil things happening he would say “this looks like a job for Superman” and he would go inside a phonebooth and change from Clark Kent, reporter, to Superman, Superhero. As Superman he would eradicate the danger, threat, or evildoer and then ‘whoosh’ change back into Clark Kent without anyone being the wiser.
The superman quote started me to thinking about Toastmasters. A couple of weeks ago, myself and all of my colleagues attended a mandatory “all hands” meeting at work. While I will spare you the granular details the basic premise of an “all hands” is for upper level management to inform the workforce about how the overall agency is performing, give recognition awards and answer questions employees might have about the agency. As an audience member listening to all the stutters, and filler words and nervous laughter and no vocal variety what so ever, I found myself saying “this looks like a job for Toastmasters”.
Now, I am certainly not suggesting that becoming a Toastmaster will make one a superhero but if a person were to join and follow the program it would certainly help eradicate the danger of boring presentation; eliminate the threat of one losing their audience in minutia and stamp out the evil distractions of filler words that detract from the point.
Toastmasters can change a terrible presenter into a great presenter and everyone will be the wiser.
What would it take to start a Corporate TM Club there?
We have one they just won’t join. I’ve had meeting after meeting with them. They said they don’t want to be judged.