Article #41: It's Time to Express

“Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho … to poori kainath use tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai”, one of the famous dialogues from the Bollywood Movie Om Shanti Om. It means that if you wish something from your heart, then the entire universe will try to fulfill it. I believe the same thing happened in the case of my High-Performance Leadership project wherein my universe comprised of my project team, project guidance committee and the guests' team.  This article is all about my most ambitious project, HPL in the journey of Toastmasters.

I would like to divide my experience into 3 segments, before HPL, during HPL and after HPL. 

1 year before when I completed the level 4 in my path, I got stuck with this High-performance leadership project due to lack of ideas. I spoke with some experienced Toastmasters in and around the club, pathway focal, posted in TM FB groups, but nothing worked for me because in some of them, I couldn’t get the clarity while for others, I couldn’t find them interesting. Finally, I decided to take KP Empower new season as the project and bring out a positive change, but all thanks to corona and the lockdown, even that didn’t work. This pushed me to go back to the drawing board. But least I know that I would get all my answers in the online manual for the project itself available in the TI portal until I referred it completely. I found that I could take up a project on Program Quality, but before that I could see that my club was lagging members itself to run the program effectively. Hence, I have chosen my HPL as “Membership Expansion” which was the need of the hour. 

I already built some confidence by bringing new members to the club in the term that I served as a President. But this time, the things were completely different and difficult as it was going to be a virtual project. I was so sure from the beginning that this was going to be a big challenge in view of the on-going situation. But I moved on with the belief that either I would get confidence again if I succeed or I would get some learnings even if I fail.  

As per the project requirement, I got 3 members in my team, TM Anurag, TM Rishik and TM Pavan. Also, I got a Guidance Committee of 4 members, TM Samyuktha, TM Sainath, TM Chaitanya and TM Pavan. We came up with the program name as “It’s Time to Express” and We followed 4 steps during the project execution. 

  1. Form a WhatsApp group of at least 20 like-minded guests from our network in the first week 

  1. Conduct interactive meetings on Zoom with a theme for just half an hour on alternate days for at least 3 weeks 

  1. Conduct a Guest Speak-a-thon in the consequent week 

  1. Follow up with the guests to take membership by explaining the benefits of Toastmasters 

I got an amazing cooperation and support from all the 3 members of my project team while hosting the meetings, while arranging the Speak-a-thon and also during the membership follow up. 

Equally, my project guidance committee helped a lot in the backend with their brilliant ideas like Dividing the members into groups, leader assignment, team activities and many more during all our 5 meetings throughout the project. 

 To talk about the learnings, the first one is  

  1. Approach: To complete any project, we have to approach various people. We need to change our approach style based on the person we are going to reach out because end of the day, we have to convince them to be part of our project. Our approach should always be in a pleasing way and if we can explain the person about the benefits that they are going to get in doing our project during our first approach itself, then we are half way successful. In my case, it was project team, guidance committee and the guests whom I had to approach. I explained about the benefits of the program to guests while approaching them. Luckily, I got the project team easily with a simple approach of announcement in the group. For Guidance committee, I approached in a pleasing way. 

  1. Interact, Interact and Interact: Once people become part of our project; we should keep interacting with them until they are in the project even though they are not active or occupied with other things. Otherwise, it would have its own impact on the project. In my case, there were times when it wasn’t possible for members to join the meetings, but I ensured to have the continuous interaction with the guests, project team and guidance committee. 

  1. Follow-up: The toughest task involved in any project especially in a volunteer organization like Toastmasters. It’s not necessary that once you assign a task or ask someone for help in your project and you would get the expected positive result. But if you own the project and if you are the project manager, you have to be on back of people to get the task done. In my case, I had to follow up individually with the guests, project team and guidance committee as and when it was required. 

  1. Continuity: No matter how many or how much the team is involved in a project at any point of time, there should be continuity in the project. The show must go on. Otherwise, the project would either stop half the way or would never get complete. In my case, there were numerous times, when most of the guests didn’t join the meetings or all the project team members were not part of the meetings or all the guidance committee members were not available in the meetings, but I ensured that the meetings went as planned and there was continuity in the project. Of course, I followed alternate ways to involve members who were not part of the meetings. 

  1. Recognition: Recognition of the members’ efforts in the project motivates them in moving forward and also gives them immense happiness for contributing to the project. In my case, I rewarded the guests with certificates in the Speak-a-thon and project team with Appreciation note and guidance committee with vote of thanks 

Initially I thought that after the project, I would get either learnings or confidence. But to my surprise, I got confidence along with the learnings as we got 5 new members to the club. 

HPL is like once in a blue moon kind of project. Appears to be tough, but when you do it with passion, it will give you immense satisfaction and confidence in moving forward. So, what are you thinking now? Consider doing HPL even if it is a mandate project or part of the electives. You will get an amazing experience. Wish you all the best.

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