Motivate Others

Speaker: Yoong Ee Chuan, ACB, CL, MS3

Pathway: Motivational Strategies

Level 4 Project 1

Motivate Others

Title: Carrots, Sticks and People

Date: 18 August 2022

“Motivate Others” is a level 4 compulsory project in the Motivational Strategies Pathway.

In this project, the toastmaster has to build a team of three to four people to help him/her create and complete a project to benefit his/her club.

In undertaking this project, the toastmaster has to use the Toastmasters’ resources for this Pathway project to develop motivational strategies for each of his/her team members. After completion of the project, the toastmaster is to share his/her experience in a 5- to 7-minute prepared speech.

Introduction

You can lead your horse to the water, but you cannot force the horse to drink the water.

My topic today is about carrots, sticks and people. This is because my project is about how we can motivate other people. The project requires us to come up with a project and get people to help us achieve success in the project.

During one of the Executive Committee meetings of the Open Alumni Toastmasters Club last year, we realised that unlike Telok Blangah Toastmasters Club, which has recruited five new members this year, we lacked new blood, which is new members. New members are the life blood of any Toastmasters Club.

Planning For A SpeechCraft Workshop

So, we came up with this idea to organise a SpeechCraft workshop. Now, for those of you who may not know what a SpeechCraft is.

It is a series of accelerated Toastmasters meetings that aims to recruit members from the public into the club.

During the workshop, the participants will be trained in the fundamentals of public speaking, and they will then present their first few level 1 prepared speech projects.

We thought that it was a good idea, to promote it and attract new members. However, to plan and conduct a SpeechCraft workshop, I couldn’t do it alone. Having been a long-lost member of The Open Alumni Toastmasters Club, I had forgotten how to organise a SpeechCraft.

My Team, The Executive Committee

I was very fortunate in that I’m not alone. There is a team, not just I. There’s no letter “I” in the word team. I could tap on my fellow executive committee members, people like Annabelle, people like Elaine, people like our another long lost distinguished toastmaster, Wong Kok Wah. I could tap on all of them, plus the rest of the executive committee because they were able to help me with planning the SpeechCraft.

I was very fortunate in that I’m not alone. There is a team, not just I. There’s no letter “I” in the word team.

I could tap on my fellow executive committee members, people like Annabelle, people like Elaine, people like our another long last distinguished toastmaster, Wong Kok Wah. I could tap on all of them, plus the rest of the executive committee because they were able to help me with planning the SpeechCraft.

So, I did according to what the toastmasters manual teaches on how to motivate others. You have to consider these four factors.

• What is in it for them in terms of recognition?
• What would be the achievement that the group members are able to get from participating in this work?
• Are they able to elevate their status?
• Is there affiliation between the group members?

My Affiliation With My Team Members

With that in mind, I tried to work on how I could get each of them to help me.

Now firstly, we have already known each other for a long time because I was long lost, but now am found. The lost sheep has returned to the fold of The Open Alumni Toastmasters Club. So, the affiliation is definitely there. That was what brought me back to the club.

Hence, leveraging on the affiliation, I appealed to their experience and their depth of knowledge, and they were able to share with me SpeechCraft program samples to work on.

They were able to recommend potential trainers for us, one of them being our Distinguished Toastmaster, Wong Kok Wah, as well as provide me with some of the marketing materials and so on.

We then split the tasks among the various members of this SpeechCraft project team. I too proceeded to carry out some research by looking into the online SpeechCraft materials. Annabelle was able to share with me the curriculum from some other clubs’ SpeechCraft workshop. Elaine was able to ensure that Kok Wah would be able to help out as one of our trainers.

It Was Not All For Nothing

Like many other things, although we spent a lot of effort and I was able to motivate them to help me. The club would have grown bigger if we had managed to kick off the SpeechCraft workshop. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we could not get enough people to join the workshop.

Despite failing to proceed with the SpeechCraft workshop, a small benefit arose from the planning of the project.

I managed to pull Kok Wah along to help out in an impromptu speaking workshop for the Nanyang Technological University undergraduates, ran by their Career and Alumni Office.

Lessons Learned

So, what have I learned from this experience using carrots, sticks, and people? What I learned is that we are not horses, we are all human beings.

The challenge with working in teams is to get to know everyone first, work on the affiliation. When people are comfortable with each other it is then easier to leverage on the team to work towards a common goal.

All of us can grow together and enhance our status together. Finally, recognise everyone’s efforts despite not being able to achieve the primary goal. With that I encourage all of you to think about this. When you’re about to drink the water, are you a horse? Do you need a carrot?

Back to you, Toastmaster of the Evening.