Page 20 - july 2022

THOUGHTS FROM THE SIDELINE
Employers Seek Soft Skills
Eldred Brown, DTM, IPDD
A few days ago, I read in OregonLive.com an
article headlined “Oregon employers say job
seekers lacking in soft skills.” (You can read
the article by clicking here.) Reading the
article further, this statement struck me as
its most important: "Employers are generally
happy with the level of education and the
basic skills that Oregon workers bring to the
table." the report says. "But they find workers
lacking in specific occupational skills related
to their career fields, in advanced skills like
critical thinking and problem-solving, and
soft skills like leadership and teamwork,
employers report.” Aren’t such skills as critical
thinking and problem-solving, leadership,
and teamwork benefits of participation in
Toastmasters?
Let’s start with critical thinking. Dictionary.
com defines critical thinking as “the objective
analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to
form a judgment.” Is this not what we do in our
speech evaluations? We analyze every speech.
We evaluate the speech to form a judgment
of the speech’s strengths and opportunities
for improvement. We synthesize specific
recommendations for how the speech can be
improved and, with that, the speaker’s skills as
a speaker. We construct the most motivational
way to present our speech evaluation, so the
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speaker wants to continue making better
speeches. This is all one big exercise in critical
thinking.
I also see in this evaluation process the
work of problem-solving. Every speech
presents a “problem” to us—maybe it’s more
positive to call it a challenge. Every speech
presents to us the challenge to identify how
it can be improved and to develop a solution
we think will make the speech better. That’s
problem-solving.
What about leadership? After all,
Toastmasters brands itself as the place “Where
Leaders Are Made.” Our educational program
has been reworked recently to place more
emphasis on leadership skills development.
As the old Competent Leader manual realized
quite well, every meeting role can be used as an
opportunity to develop leadership skills. You
have the opportunity to grow as a leader by
taking on formal leadership roles within your
club. If you’ve already served as a club officer,
you can cultivate more advanced leadership
skills as an Area or Division Director, or even
a member of the Trio.
Many join Toastmasters to overcome
their fear of public speaking and become
better communicators, but the strength of
Toastmasters, I believe, is its ability to grow
leaders who can use their leadership skills to
great effect in the workplace.
Lastly, let’s look at teamwork. Toastmasters’
leadership development is all about exercising
leadership within a team. If you’re serving as
a club officer, you are doing so as a member of
your club’s executive team. If you’re an Area
Director, you’re probably working with a team
of two to five other Area Directors. If you’re
a Division Director, you’re leading that team
of Area Directors. The goal of Toastmasters
leadership development is that you will build
and lead teams and, thereby, learn to work well
as a member of a team.
Now, how can we market our program of
skills development in critical thinking and
problem-solving, in leadership and teamwork,
to Oregon’s job seekers? Back in the pre-Covid
days when Cleon Cox ran his weekly Job
Finders Support Group meetings, Cleon was
never afraid to talk up Toastmasters and
promote it to job seekers—that’s how he drew
me into Toastmasters.
On the occasional Friday that Cleon
couldn’t lead the meeting, he had another
experienced Toastmaster, Rodger Cook, lead it.
But Cleon’s Job Finder Support Group doesn’t
have to be our only medium for marketing
Toastmasters to job seekers. Selling our young
adults on how our education and training
program can help them get established in
their careers is a good way. Sharing with our
more seasoned job seekers how Toastmasters
has helped our careers is another. My home
club has even made a focus on job search and
interview skills the theme of a couple of our
open houses. The possibilities are limitless,
so I encourage you to explore how you and
your clubs can market our ability to foster the
growth of the soft skills that so many of our
employers want in a job seeker.
VOICES! | JULY 2022 21