Advanced Club Leadership Training 2011 Session Plan

District 70

Toastmasters

2011 Advanced Club

Leadership Training

Session Plans Version 1.0

District 70 Toastmasters – Advanced Club Leadership Training 2011 Training Session Plan

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Important Note: Please read. This training has been designed to be delivered in 3 hours -‐ with 2.5 hours of training and 1/2 hour for a break. There are five topics, each of 30 minutes duration. To allow the greatest flexibility we have separated the topics into 3 core topics that must be trained, and 2 optional topics which should be trained but can be left out if you are running over time. If you choose to leave out a topic you can choose to leave out both or either one of the optional topics as suits your needs and preference.

Using this Session Plan Use this plan to guide you though the training session in a step by step manner.

Have plan printed out and use as notes during the session. It would be best if you are familiar with them material before the training session.

Type of training activities

Lecture: You talk, they listen. Each lecture should last no more than 5 minutes. Be familiar with the PowerPoint presentation and use it as a mnemonic device to assist your delivery. Discussion: Usually starts with you asking a question to the audience and eliciting responses. Facilitate the discussion so that several people respond. Sometimes you may want to write the answers down on a whiteboard or flip-‐chart. Some group discussions are open-‐ended and are used to simply contextualise knowledge and allows learners to hear other peoples points of view. Other discussions my have a focused conclusion that you will have to guide the group towards these are know as a guided discussion. Buzz Group: A large group is broken into a number of small groups so that they can discuss the subject at hand. Activities: Several activities are included which usually conducted by the learners in quick time and with some minor discussion between people.


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The Past Six Months: My Leadership Experience (Core Session) 30 Minutes

Quote (1 minute)

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way” John Maxwell, Leadership Expert

Introduction (2 minutes)

The purpose of this session is to a) review our goals and objectives and to look at the decisions we have made in the past 6 months, and b) determine what actions are required to be ensure a successful and productive second half of the toastmasters year.

Trainers note: Much of this session can be packaged up in the metaphor of a trip or journey, travelling from point A to B with a course correction along the way. Trainers are encouraged to pick whatever journey metaphor they are most comfortable with. Examples include: hiking, bushwalking, travelling on a ship or boat, flying in a airplane, travelling to the moon. The key points for the metaphor are that we have a start point, an end point, a course correction, and that it is possible to lose your way, or get side-tracked (by a storm, asteroid shower, picnic, etc).

Lecture: Start off with the opening metaphor and explain the purpose of this session, which is to; a) review our original goals/expectations when we started the year, b) see how we are progressing, and c) determine if any corrective actions are required on our part: to ensure that we end the Toastmasters year having achieved the goals we set out with.


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Briefly introduce the three focus questions: Where am I? (Where am I along my journey?) Where do I want to be? (What is my destination?) How do I get there? (What to I need to have, be, or do to achieve my goals)

Where am I now? (10 minutes)

Activity: Have learners complete the 5 reflection questions in their workbook. They have one minute for each question.

1. What are my greatest achievements? 2. What are my biggest challenges… and what have I learnt from them? 3. What have I learnt about myself in the last 6 months? 4. Do I feel like a valuable & contributing member of the executive team? 5. What will people say about me at the end of my club officer year? Note: Encourage learners to respond in ways that are inner focused. For example rather than saying that 'My biggest challenge is that Billy is a arrogant so-an-so' it is better to say that "I find it challenging to deal with arrogant people". The reason for this is because it is most likely not possible for us to change Billy's behaviour, but we certainly can change our reaction to it.

End the activity by having a sampling of people share their answers with the audience. (5 minutes)


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Note: The learners can either state their answers to all five questions or lead the group to respond one question at a time. i.e. say two people to tell us their answer to Question 1, then another two people to state their answer to Question 2. etc. Be careful of the time that a session like that can absorb. It will possible be best go with the first option and have three people read through all their answers. An extra point of learning here is that it is likely that the challenges will be somewhat universal or common to other people. You can say something like "Oh yeah, I'm sure that we can all relate to that issue."

Where do I want to be (5 minutes)

Explain that the intention is for learners to reflect on their expectations when they took on their club officer roll six months ago and their progress thus far. Ask them to consider if they are on target to fulfilling their expectations. Do they still want the same things as they did six months ago? Do they want something different? Have them consider their leadership aspirations, their personal growth, their educational achievements, and their leadership skills.

Activity: Have the learners complete the question "Where do I want to be" on the top of page 5 of the workbook.

How do I get there? (10 minutes)

Lecture: (2 minutes)

The final question for this review is, "How do I get there?" Learners should consider their final destination (Where they want to be) and answer these three questions.


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What do I need to Be, Do, and Have to reach my destination? What do I need to be? (What personal attributes does the officer need to work on? e.g. Do they need to be calmer, more assertive, less aggressive, more relaxed, less uptight, more forgiving, more outgoing, etc.)

This is basically a function of personality and character, inner emotions, and feelings.

What do I need to do? (What actions does the officer need to undertake? e.g. Plan their time better, get the agenda out on time, follow up with someone, form a committee, ask for help, etc.)

This is about action and making things happen.

What do I need to have? (What resources does the officer need to acquire? e.g. Increased training, more information, more assistance, better supplies, greater autonomy, etc).

These are the external resources that an officer may need to help them do their job better.

Activity: (8 minutes) Focusing on these three things (be, do and have) ask the learners to complete the section on the bottom of page 5 'How do I get there?' Finish off by asking for one or two people to share their answers.

Questions (1 minute)

Take two or three questions from the learners before recapping and concluding this session on a high note.


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Summary (1 minute)

In this session we have: Reviewed our individual progress over the last six months and reflected on the next six months ahead of us by looking at the 3 key questions: Where am I? Where do I want to be? How do I get there?

What's the next step? (1 minute)

1. Continue asking these questions. Slide 2. Take action.


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Club Culture: And how it effects my club (Core Session) (30 Minutes)

Quote (1 minute)

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.” Slide Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet, Lecturer and Essayist, 1803-‐1882

Introduction

Note to Trainer: This is a 30 to 45 minute session designed to help clubs and club officers develop understanding and awareness of the cultural characteristics of a healthy Toastmasters club and inspire and motivate them to work more towards this end.

Introduction on the importance of setting and maintaining quality benchmarks for club operation, including but not limited to the basics of the Quality Club Audit. This session starts off with several reflective questions, then has a short lecture on 'What is Club Culture?" and then end with an activity where learners look at the own clubs culture and the Quality Club Audit.

What is Club Culture: (5 to 10 Minutes)

Reflective questions:

Start off by introducing the topic and then asking the learners to take a minute or two to think about and answer the 7 reflective questions on the top of page 6 of the workbook. Ask them to be honest. (Slide and workbook)


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The questions are:

Are your club members enthusiastic? Is everybody working as a team and collaborating? Are there any free riders? (A free rider is a person who does not do their fair share, for example a club member who doesn't take on any meeting roles.) Are you satisfied with your clubs performance? Is morale in your club high? Are members’ needs being met? Are members’ goals being achieved? Is our membership turnover rate acceptable?

Learners should answer Yes / No / Don’t know? to each of these questions. Suggest that regardless of how they answered the questions that club culture plays a major part

Lecture: Club Culture: Using the PowerPoint slides as a guide talk briefly on the aspects of club culture listed below. What is Club Culture? Club Culture is the assumptions, values, norms, and tangible signs (artifacts) of an organisation’s members and their behaviours. For example:


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Timing Do we start and finish on time. Do we tolerate speeches that go over time?

Appropriateness of language Do people in our clubs swear or use crude language. Do we tell

risqué jokes at our club.

Bias Does our club attract any particular sort of member, e.g. all one age group, all one socio-‐economic group, all one educational level?

Speeches Do we do manual speeches?

Dress Do we wear business suits, smart casual, casual clothing to our meetings

It is important to note that there are no right or wrong answers here; there are only matters of fact. Each club will conduct its business in a certain way that will lead to a particular culture. Each club then can be labelled with a series of adjectives that could be used to describe its culture. For example clubs could be described as: Fun, enjoyable, friendly, professional, stuffy, casual, traditional, blasé, dedicated, of-‐a-‐specific-‐biased (specifically biased to service the needs of a particular group). How would the learners label their own club, or another club they know?

How is club culture communicated?

Club culture is communicated by the things we do and say, and the things that we don't do and don't say. For each of these things there can be positive (good) and negative (bad) examples. For example:


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Positive Negative

The things we do Treating others with respect. Talking during other people’s speeches.

The things we say Using educational award titles when introducing someone. (eg John Smith CC).

Using harsh or critical language during an evaluation.

The things we don't do Not laughing when someone forgets their speech during a ice breaker.

Not offering words of encouragement to the losers of a speech competition.

The things we don't say Not saying how boring an educational session was.

Not asking visitors to join our club.

It is clear that some of these examples are universally positive and negative. For example treating other people with respect should always be a clearly established norm in any club and should be a universal rule. Other examples however may not be. Consider the issue of using educational award and titles after a person’s name (saying DTM for example). If you club culture is professional in nature then it may be expected that people would use educational titles, to not do so would be rude. If however your club is more casual in nature then using titles could be seen as being somewhat pretentious. Can you think of other examples?

Trainers Note: If anyone starts to argue the previous point, respond by saying that they are proving your point, that using titles, etc is simply a matter of preference, but these sort of preferences run deep with people.

What is a winning culture?

"Where everyone in the team is committed to creating a performance focused environment where every member has the opportunity to grow and achieve." Slide


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How do we know if we have a winning club culture?

Regardless of how we might describe our club there are some elements that all clubs should have in common. These elements are based on the questions we asked at the beginning of this session.

Are your club members enthusiastic? Is everybody working as a team and collaborating? Are there any free riders? Are you satisfied with your clubs performance? Is morale in your club high?

Are members’ needs being met? Are members’ goals being achieved? Is our membership turnover rate acceptable?

If every member of your executive team, indeed if every member of your club, can confidently answer yes to each of these questions then you have a winning club culture. If there is any doubt by even one member then perhaps your club culture needs an overhaul.

Activity: Reflection using the Quality Club Audit. (15 minutes)

Note: This activity will use the existing District 70 quality Club Audit to lead us into thinking about the culture of our club. The Quality Club Audit is itself based on Toastmasters International's Moments of Truth Educational session which is freely available from the TI website.

Setup the activity Introducing the Quality Club Audit on page 7 of the workbook. Explain that we are not going to do a quality club audit and that we are not interested in people


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tallying up their club score and telling us how wonderful their club is! (Authors Note: Just in case you missed it, there is a sarcastic tone here. In the past I have seen people use the audit to misrepresent their club’s achievements and shout out a high score. That is not the point of the audit; at least it should not be the point.) We want to use the audit form to focus our attention on the 36 performance standards listed and then think about and answer these three questions.

1. What are we doing that we should keep doing? 2. What are we doing that we should stop doing? 3. What are we not doing that we could do to improve club performance?

The questions should be answered honestly and frankly and should be aimed at exploring what elements of our club culture help or hinder our clubs performance. Tell them that a club representative will (in 45 seconds or less) present back to the whole group afterwards.

Activity: Have the learners break up into their club groups and discuss the three questions above. Depending on the logistics of your room and how many people you have you may want to lengthen or shorten this part of the exercise to between 10 and 20 minutes, remember to allow time for the following debrief session. Slide and Workbook

Debrief:

Call every back together have a representative from each club report to the group what their club came up with. Be strict on time here and remind people to only talk for 45 seconds. Obviously the more clubs you have represented in the room the longer this part will take.

Note: Often a debrief session like this is not really required for the learning to occur as most of the learning happens during the activity. Having said that many learners however do not understand this and will feel a lack of completion if the debrief does not happen. Also often many good ideas can come up during the debrief, so there can be some value to the group as a whole.


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Note: If you are not getting any responses perhaps you can ask the audience “has anyone ever though about their club culture in this way before?”, “can they see that it is important? “, “can they see how it can affect our clubs positively or negatively?”

Summary (1 minute)

In this session we have covered: Club Culture What is club culture, and how is it communicated. The fact that there is not right or wrong club culture Club culture determines the things we do and say and don't do and don't say. And using the Quality Club Audit we looked at specific actions that we can do in our respective clubs.


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Over the coming weeks;

1. Think about your club's culture. What's good, what's bad. What needs to change. 2. Ask you members if they are happy with the clubs performance. 3. Conduct a Quality Club Audit or a Moments of Truth session at you next executive meeting. 4. Focus on developing a winning club.


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Enhancing Club Leadership Skills: The Three Pillars (Core Session) (35 minutes)

Quote (1 minute)

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” Slide Jimmy Johnson quotes (American football Coach and broadcaster"

Three Pillars for Success (Theory) (10 Minutes)

Lecture: Three Pillars Trainer to introduce the three pillars that will be the focus of this session:

1. Meetings with 'zing' 2. Processing new members -‐ Lance Miller Model 3. Succession Planning

Trainer should explain that these three focus areas were selected by Senior District Officers for specific attention during the design if this training. Also mention that the three focus areas will be quickly introduced first and that a group activity will follow.


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Discussion: Pillar 1: How do we add 'zing' to our meeting?

After introducing the topic ask the learners what they think it means to have a meeting with zing. Ideally they will call out a list of adjectives or ideas such as , quick, fun, interesting, snappy, exciting, etc.

Lecture:

Using the Meetings with Zing Mind Map as a guide, discuss with the audience different ways to add Zing to a meeting. Slides of mind map The mind map includes items such as Guest Speakers, Theme Meetings, Club Culture, Props, Agendas.

Trainers Note: This part of the session can be delivered in a number of ways. You can simply talk through the Mind Maps lecture style, or you can be more interactive by asking learners to offer suggestions about how they add zing to their meetings. If you make it interactive then you may want to lengthen the duration of this part by a couple of minutes.


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Lecture: Pillar 2: Processing New Members -‐ The Lance Miller Model

Lance Miller the 2005 World Champion of Public Speaking offers this model as a way to think about how to process people from guest to new member. The model suggests that Visitors interact with each executive officer in a particular order thus:

VPPR: Attracts Guest to Club and often is first contact person -‐ Creates first impression outside club S@A: Ensure room is ready and meeting starts on time -‐ Creates first impression at club VPM: Encourages guest to join and processes membership application Treasurer: Takes payment and processes membership with VPM VPE: Programs new member speeches and learning activities Secretary: Keeps membership roster up-‐to-‐date. President: Oversees the process

This model shows how each club executive officer is important in the processing of new members. Take time to explain how a slip up by any of the officers can impact on the smooth transition from guest to member.

Lecture: Pillar 3 Succession Planning

This is mostly a reminder that officers should start thinking about succession planning. Explain what succession planning is just in case some people don't know (Succession planning is the process of picking and grooming the people that will replace you). Succession planning should consider not only


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what role people can do next but what potential they have for future years. The aim of succession planning is to ensure a smooth transition from one club executive to the next and that some more mundane issues should also be considered. e.g. transferring member roster and educational award database, bank account signatories, etc.

The Three Pillars (Activity) (20 minutes)

Background Information for trainers:

The learners are to split into their executive officer groups and discuss the focus areas above in relation to their own club officer position. The structure of the discussion should be constrained to: Before the meeting: The necessary activities that occur weeks, days, hours, and minutes before a club meeting. At the meeting: The activities that occur during a club meeting. After the meeting: The activities that occur directly (the first 5 or 10 minutes) after a club meeting closes. Between meetings: The days and weeks between one meeting and the next.

Activity: 3 Pillars Workbook and Club Officer Cards Introduce the session by saying that the members are about to break up to discuss the four focus areas but before they do that we want to show them the format of the discussion. Refer to the workbook page and show them the structure of Before, During, After, and Between. Explain that they are to consider each focus area. Break the audience into their executive officer groups and have them discuss the first focus area (Meetings with Zing). If they have time they can move on to the second and third focus areas, but that this is not mandatory. Advise them that they will be


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presenting back to the whole audience afterwards for three minutes only. Tell them that they only have 15 minutes for this activity.

Presentations: 3 Pillars -‐ Debrief

(20 minutes) (2.5 minutes per executive position)

With everybody back in the room and focused on the trainer have a representative from each group report to the audience. Three minutes each. Use a timer and lights if necessary.



Summary (1 minute)

In this session we have looked at 3 Pillars for the continued success of out club. Slide Meetings with Zing Processing new members -‐ The Lance Miller Model Succession planning.


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Where to from here? (1 minute)

1. Undertake to increase the Zing of your next meeting 2. Review your processes for converting a visitor into a member 3. If you haven't already started, start preparing for the next executive team and consider who would be your replacement.


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Communicating Across The Generations (30 Minutes)

Quotation (1 minute)

“We are each members of our own generations, and our world views are colored by our own experiences” Ann Fishman, Generational Marketing Expert. We have to work at understanding the feelings and behaviors of those from other age groups to effectively communicate and market to them.”

Introduction

This session looks at different generations, and provides learners with an insight as to how they can better understand what the different generational needs and interests are, and how they like to be communicated to. The outcome of which is to re-‐engineer how they market their clubs to both prospective and existing members.

Introducing the Different Generations (5 Minutes)

Lecture: Each generation is moulded by the world events that occur during its formative years. For example, if you lived through the Great Depression, you carry some mark of that experience. You save; you may be thrifty. If you lived through the Vietnam War, it almost certainly affected your view of authority. These distinct historical experiences create characteristics that stay with people throughout the rest of their lives. Currently we have 6 generations that coexist in our country today, along with their personality types. They are:


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The G.I.s The Silents aka Builders The Boomers Gen X Gen Y aka Millennials iGen aka Gen Z

For this session we will ignore the G.I.s and the iGen as they are not really in our target demographic age range. Each of the remaining groups can easily be tagged to the major influences in their lives. E.g.

Silents: World War II, Robert Menzies, Radio Boomers: Vietnam War, Gough Whitlam, Television Gen X: Fall of the Berlin Wall, Bob Hawke, VCR Gen Y: 911, John Howard, Playstation Note: refer to separate pdf document from McCrindle Research, "The Generations Defined Sociologically" for more information.

All generations react to various methods of communication. This one point has a heavy sway on how we look to get our word out there. For example, if we are targeting Gen Y we could do better than to place an advertisement in the local newspaper. If we do not have a web presence we are not reaching people under 42. The younger the target age group the more emphasis must be put on social media. If the demographic in your area is more senior, you may rely more on traditional methods.

Note: If time permits you could explore with the audience other icons that are representative of the different generations, e.g. cars, movie stars, movies, songs, singers, bands, transportation, fashion, toys, etc. You could also leave this activity to the end of the session. Additional Note: There is no real need to do this activity, so do it only if you need to fill time, or as a fun activity.


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The mind maps in the workbook summarise these differences in greater detail, adding information about typical traits of the different generations, what's important to them, and their preferred methods of communication.

Note: Give learners a minute or two to look over the mind maps.

Activity (15 minutes + 10 minutes = 25 minutes total)

Group Activity

(15 minutes)

In small groups have learners choose one generational group and discuss how they could apply the mind map information to:

1. Attract new members to their club, 2. Maintain and motivate their current membership, 3. Encourage existing members to take on executive roles within their club.

It would be helpful to think about the following categories: medium (newspaper, flyers, radio, internet, TV), phrases/slogans/words, images, communication methods, programs, activities, or events you could offer, etc. If time permits, they can repeat the exercise for another generational group and compare if their approach to the second group would be different to the first?

Debrief:

(10 minutes)

There are a number of ways to debrief this session. The most obvious is to simply have people tell their results of the activity. Other ways to debrief could be to ask if people agreed or disagree


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with the information in the mind maps, or ask if anyone has any examples to support the information (any ah-‐ha moments). You could ask if anybody explored a different generational group to their own (this could be fun with the right respondents). Feel free to ask the audience any questions you like to debrief and summarise this topic.

Note: If anyone objects strongly to being 'categorised' or 'stereo-typed' agree with them and say you understand how they feel, and then say that this IS one of the problems with this sort of exercise, and that while it is not our intention to pigeon-hole people that this sort of exercise is useful for exploring different ways of communicating to different people.

Another objection that may be raised is that like most things the majority of the research in this area is from the United States and has an American slant to it. The response to this is that there is significant Australian Research to support similar conclusions, most specifically refer them to www.mccrindle.com.au (Thanks to Alison Lavick for this link).



Conclusion (1 minute)

Trainers Note: This session lends itself more to a conclusion more than a summary which has been used for the other sessions.

The generation gap is widening, and to be successful, we need to be flexible in how we recruit, retain, manage, and motivate people. We need to relate to all generations and bridge the gaps or else we condemn our clubs to a slow death. Each generation responds to different cultures, respects different rules, need different types of guidance, and communicates differently.


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As leaders of our clubs we should constantly ask ourselves do we have an eye on all aspects of marketing our clubs? Are we providing a contemporary culture in order to provide consistency of service and a path for growth for the individual? And finally are we continually renewing ourselves as a group and individually?


Redesign your next Membership Building and Public Relations Campaign to be more attractive to your target market. Submit your material to the District Public Relations Officer before 30 April and you might win this year's Public Relations Competition


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Reference Material, Web links and further reading

Review of Last Six Months

www.eduweb.vic.gov.au—reffram.pdf www.nwlink.com—reflection.html

Club Culture

Quality Club Audit -‐ District 70 Website Moments of Truth -‐ TI website www.swimcoachingbrain.com—creating-‐a-‐winning-‐swimming-‐club-‐culture-‐–-‐excellence-‐environment-‐everything-‐everyday-‐everybody/ www.distil.com.au—239-‐club-‐culture-‐some-‐questions-‐to-‐help-‐you-‐assess-‐your-‐clubs-‐culture

Enhanced club leadership

toastmasters.wikia.com—Themes www.toastmasters.org—ToastmastersOnstage.aspx www.ehow.com—how_4947478_come-‐creative-‐themes-‐toastmasters-‐meeting.html www.ehow.com—list_6505955_toastmaster-‐meeting-‐theme-‐ideas.html


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Communicating across generations

marketing.about.com—generationmktg.htm ldarrylarmstrong.wordpress.com—generational-‐marketing www.mccrindle.com.au—free-‐resources.htm

Decision making

Technology

Advanced Club Leadership Training 2011 Session Plan