Has Toastmasters Failed the Digital Disruption?

For a global non-profit whose aim is to teach public speaking and leadership skills, the last 18 months of the pandemic have been nothing short of challenging for Toastmasters International. Members who had been honing their skills in gestures, eye contact, and theatrics, suddenly found themselves without a venue and a receptive audience.

The organisation scrambled to adapt to the situation. Guidelines were issued and workshops were held to help clubs run online meetings. The 2020 International Convention and the World Championship of Public Speaking, Toastmasters' annual flagship events, were moved online to varying degrees of success.

Nevertheless, membership suffered. As of 30 June 2021, Toastmasters International recorded over 16% membership decline since the term started on 1 July 2020. In Singapore, the loss was over 7%. These numbers represent paid-up members, or those who paid their annual dues. They do not represent active members, or those who attend club meetings regularly. My anecdotal experience suggests that clubs are effectively losing members even more.

Suffice to say that the pandemic has disrupted the core of the Toastmasters programme. As a technologist who sat on the splash zone during the previous term, as an Area Director and a club member, it is interesting to see how the organisation has coped with this unprecedented digital disruption. Here are my observations from this corner of the world.

Change for Opportunity, Not Out of Necessity

As Singapore introduced pre-lockdown measures in March 2020, club meetings were immediately suspended. While many clubs moved quickly and resumed online, others chose to wait. Some cited unfamiliarity and apprehension among members with the then-novel format, and few clubs tried to wait it out.

Six months later, it became clear that the strategy of embracing the change had paid dividends for the early adopters. Their meetings became more organised, their presentations turned slicker, and their members became more comfortable speaking in front of the screen. As contest season set in, it was clear that investing in and mastering good communication equipment were as important as delivering a good performance.

Despite the successes, however, many chose to leave. In their December 2020 Alumni Member Survey, Toastmasters International stated that "Over 50% alumni members would be motivated to rejoin when in-person meetings resume." Sometimes I wonder if these members left because they do not see online meetings as a continuation of their Toastmasters experience.

Even now, many clubs meet online prodded by necessity. They do it because they have to. They meet online because it is not possible to meet physically.

As a result, quality suffers. Speeches are marred by subpar audio, video, and interruptions. Speech evaluations tend to gravitate around the same aspects as evaluators had less information to work with. I once attended an online meeting where a prepared speaker presented without their video on. The performance was phoned in.

Members, who were expected to continue paying their fees, eventually felt that they were not getting value out of the club. They then chose to wait this one out - outside the club.

Outside Toastmasters, there was no shortage of content about online meeting skills and best practices, as the world's working population grappled with the new normal. Inside, however, it was business as usual. In Singapore, at least, I think that the organisation had missed the opportunity on rapidly repositioning themselves into a platform to help professionals adapt online.

Through work, I had practised remote collaboration even before the pandemic. The dissonance between what is considered as an effective online meeting, and how Toastmasters (in Singapore) conduct theirs, had sometimes been jarring. The working professional would improve at online meetings, out of necessity, while finding the Toastmasters experience wanting. The latter, evidently, has been advertised as being able to help the former.

In retrospect, more could have been done. The existing curriculum would have benefited from amendments to account for online preparation and delivery. A new "Online Communicator" curriculum/pathway, which could be built from existing materials, would have sent a clear message that the organisation is ready to help its members navigate this change.

The Digital Disruption Brings New Competitors

If you were to ask me a couple years ago about whom I thought Toastmasters' competitors were, I would have mentioned the likes of public speaking courses and coaches, or even acting classes. Now? I would argue that Netflix and WhatsApp belong to that group.

Let us consider why people stay in Toastmasters. While the public speaking angle might have attracted a majority, I do not think that this is a good enough reason to stay beyond the first couple of years. Anecdotally, I have observed that people remain because of the social connections that they make, or because they need to fill their time with activities.

The pandemic and the move to online have exposed the two groups to more options that can fulfil their actual requirement. For the former group, when the physical venue disappeared, would they still need the Toastmasters umbrella as a pretext to connect with their friends and acquaintances? For the latter group, since they were stuck at home anyway, signing up for an online course, picking up physical exercises, or simply binge watching shows to unwind, might have been a better proposition.

It is easy to dismiss those who have left as lacking commitment. I have heard this sentiment being echoed by some in leadership positions. I think, for Toastmasters to survive and succeed, it needs to view the problem from the alumni members' perspective. Perhaps they left because they had chosen to commit to something that they think is more worthwhile.

Is It Too Late?

By now, it is clear that we will never go back to the way things were in terms of connecting and collaborating online. Many companies plan to settle on a hybrid working model, where employees return to the office periodically and not permanently, even after the pandemic is over. In order to ensure its survival, Toastmasters need to implement fundamental changes, quickly.

The organisation needs to embrace online meetings instead of treating it as a stopgap. Specific skills required for online meeting, collaboration, and leadership success need to be incorporated into the curriculum permanently.

The current chapter meeting format, where members are expected to sit through two to three hours listening to and performing speeches, needs a rethinking. We are all too familiar with the concept of Zoom fatigue by now, which I believe have partially driven members into leaving.

To their credit, many clubs have adapted and changed their meeting format to account for members' energy level and attention span. I would prefer to see a more concerted effort to respect members' time being propagated by the organisation's leadership, however. Even now, 18 months on, I still hear stories of leadership meetings lasting more than three hours, where most of the content could have been communicated via email. This would not fly in a corporate environment. The long-winded meetings might be a sign of Toastmasters losing its relevance.

Toastmasters cannot exist out of context. It has to continually consider the needs of its members, as well as those it sees as prospective members/customers. The organisation needs to embrace the digital disruption instead of running away from it, and confidently take steps to evolve. Otherwise, it runs into the danger of quickly becoming an ivory tower.