Ever wonder why people leave Toastmasters? You can see the data by clicking here. It is eye opening when I saw this chart because TIME was the number reason. To you this might sound reasonable. Maybe you yourself feel that at times it is just too much to handle. But when I saw that it was time, I thought of time management issues or what people consider time management issues. In reality it is not time management it is priority management. When looking at it from that perspective you see a whole different picture in front of you.
People do not leave because they are happy doing things. They leave because they are dissatisfied with some aspect of what they are doing. It is the same in Toastmasters. People leave because they are unhappy in some way, shape or form. Every single person in the world wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. It gives them purpose. When there is no purpose there is no reason to stay.
With such a large attrition rate, I always ask myself why is it like that? I know Toastmasters has us always looking for new members. It is necessary if we are to keep clubs at charter strength. I understand people leaving a club when life happens. They lose a job, they move, they have family emergencies. But that does not answer for the ones that do not fall into that realm – why do they leave? The idea of constantly looking for new members is only addressing the symptom, it does nothing for the cause.
She was right. There is so much potential in Toastmasters we barely touch the surface before we even get our DTM Award. Each club is a mini volunteer business. Look at all the parallels. You have a CEO to our President, there is a training dept to our VPE, there is HR to our VPM, there is an advertisement dept to our VPPR, there is security to our SAA, there is accounting to our Treasurer, there is admins to our Secretary. What is funny is we in Toastmasters do not use our positions in the same way. Oh, do not get me wrong here, there are clubs that do it but on the whole, we do not look at our club the way we look at a business and we should.
Take for instance the training department of a business. What club has a training department? It is not possible for the VPE to do everything that is required to fully run the training program all by themselves. They need a team. When was the last time you saw a training team in a Toastmasters club?
We can ask ourselves the same question about advertising. Businesses have a whole PR department dedicated to advertising outside the business. When was the last time you saw a PR team in a Toastmasters club?
Going down the list, ask yourself the same question for all the other officer positions.
NOW, ask yourself, how many members would leave if they were involved with the club by being a part of one of these teams? Everybody wants to contribute. As leaders it is up to us to create the opportunities for our members to grow. If you want your members to stay with your club, find out what trips their trigger and get them involved with the inner workings of the club. Develop those teams. I promise your club will take on an entirely new life if all members are involved with something besides just doing speeches, table topics and evaluations.
If you are reading this and you happen to be a member that just does the speeches etc. then I encourage you to speak up and hold your club officers accountable. You have expertise in a field that the club needs to make use of. Step up and be recognized. Offer your time to help make the club more successful by becoming a part of a team. If the team does not exist – create it. Your club will appreciate all your efforts as they see their successes accumulate.
Do not sit back anymore. Your club needs you. It will only succeed if you start Getting Involved.