Visions of Significance

One of the things I desire in participation with my own campus club is a vision regarding significance.  I do desire to be a part of a club that is significant in terms of its standing and place in the college and more importantly I desire it to provide significance to the students who become members of the club.

This vision for significance is something that is not limited to the club I am a part of but it is a vision for all college toastmasters clubs, so that by this vision alone there is differentiation between college toastmaster clubs and the main two types of clubs viz. community toastmaster clubs and corporate toastmasters clubs.

One cannot simply create a process map for significance.  It needs to first be a vision that is in the minds of the leaders of the club and then this vision has to work itself through the organization - where "organization" is akin to the word organic. 

A club cannot inculcate that mental state of being unless each individual member inculcates that as a vision.  This is why talk of culture change is meaningless as "change management" but worthwhile evaluating as a vision.  So "Culture" then equates with this mental state of being, realizing itself through how it is expressed and how the expression of that works on the body of the club.  This brings us to an emergent form of systems thinking permeating organically.

Just as we do not sit down and watch hair grow, the mental state that is called culture will express itself depending on how a particular vision touches and transforms meaning for each member.  There is no guarantee that members will embody any particular vision, which is why vision, mission and purpose statements are futile.  While there is a value system in all Toastmasters Clubs a.k.a. Respect, Integrity, Service and Excellence [which is what Toastmasters International have chosen as the four primary values] - these values are only as real as the realization and evolution of any particular vision.

Significance therefore is a vision from my individual point of view.  All decisions a club takes affect a particular kind of birthing effect.  If there is particular "lost generation" of club members at any specific time, it comes down to how each executive member of the club was informed and involved in whatever guiding light was set for a particular time.  Significance can become such a guiding light and that would require strong leadership that understands siginficance and how to nurture significance in terms of club practice.