Moments of Truth

  • Posted by Theresa on February 23rd, 2007 filed in Excellence

Wednesday I facilitated a program for one of my Toastmaster Clubs called Moments of Truth. The purpose of the program is to help a club evaluate where they are, make suggestions and recommendations on how to “fix” their lacks and to make an action plan to implement these suggestions.

Part of the program was that I was supposed to tell the club what makes a good club. I skipped that part, because they already know what makes a good club. So I let them tell me. They broke into groups and each group worked on two aspects of The Good Club.

Then they graded themselves on how they are actually doing at these things. Next they made suggestions and recommendations on how they could bring their club up to optimal levels in all of the areas discussed. Then I had my co-facilitator talk about making an action plan to implement all of these good ideas.

The action plan is usually where this program falls apart. A club takes the time to dissect, evaluate, and recommend…but then what happens? Usually nothing. Because there was no concrete plan on how to get these things done.

So I took all of the notes from the meeting and broke them down into: Things to do, buy, or create and Monthly Goals. I suggested that before they even have their next meeting they should try to get all of these things done, bought or created. And then each month to work on certain aspects of their plan. I broke it down for them from what they suggested.

By the end of June they should be through the list and have a much stronger club to pass onto the next group of officers.

This is so true in “real life” too. If we really want to improve we need to take note of what is optimal, what we are lacking, decide how to fix the lacks, take action, set a deadline and then take stock.

It is too easy to say you want to do something, but never get it done. Or start but never finish. Or not to know when you are done because you had no measuring stick.

What do you want to do? Try this and see if it works.



Technorati : , , , , ,
Del.icio.us : , , , , ,
Ice Rocket : , , , , ,

Leave a Comment