A Toastmaster of Many Hats

It is said that Toastmasters wear many hats.

Part of that is the whole education process of Toastmasters.
You learn by doing different roles.

You start off easy, perhaps doing the timer role.
Eventually you will work a more challenging role at a meeting, such as speaking, evaluating or even running the meeting as a Toastmaster.

In a well-run, and well-attended meeting, it is the goal to normally have only one of the roles.

In fact, to properly learn and give proper focus to a role, it is best to be able to concentrate on the one role. It can even be a challenge sometimes to give yourself completely to a role when you are taken in by the speaker's topic.

There are many times I've heard a person say they missed the time marks or didn't count crutch words, or didn't hear the word-of-the-day because they were so interested by the speech. I've even fallen into that a few times. This is expected at times, and can be a positive comment on the speech.
It does become easier to focus on specific responsibilities of a role, the more time you are in Toastmasters.

Just recently, I had to tell an eager, newer Toastmaster that they should not try to take on both Table Topics Master role and Evaluator role in the same meeting. I explained that most people want at least some of the time during Table Topics to review what they plan to say during their evaluation.

On occasions where a member finds themselves with multiple roles, I have seen many cases where the person switches out figuratively or even physically changes something to indicate taking on a different role in the same meeting. I have even done this a few times, where I shift left to right as if I am talking to a second person, or try to show shaking hands with myself.

This can be an obvious way to show changing between activities during the meeting, and can even help visually demonstrating a transition.

At one club, I've had to handle 3 or more roles during a single meeting. Some might call it the 'Keith Show'. While I like and am willing to handle multiple roles, I know that other members will get more value by having a variety of members take part. I will only do this when nobody else steps up after multiple chances and attempts to get others to take on roles.

To me, it is more important to try to fill as many of the activities of a Toastmasters meeting, than cutting the meeting content down. If that means I have to do more, I will be glad to help out.

I realized today, that while it is most valuable for the Toastmasters program for members to focus on a single role when possible, there is another way to look at this.

The Toastmasters meeting roles are designed to help us be more professional presenters and leaders. This suggests the Toastmasters process as an implied training for business meetings and professional presentation.

However, in many cases, the person leading the meeting is not just there to lead the meeting. They often have a number of responsibilities and involvements related to a meeting they are running.

Yet, we would not expect a person in a business meeting to keep changing their modes of presentation.
For example, we would not expect them to say, "As Chair, I can not agree,"; then turn slightly and say "As project liaison, I have to say this needs complete agreement".

Two thoughts to take away from this:

1) At what point is a Toastmaster experienced enough that not only can they take on more than one role, but to properly exercise good dynamic leadership qualities, they should have to take on multiple roles in a meeting?

Of course, this often goes hand-in-hand with being a top officer of a club, which can be by definition, be the point at which one is ready to take on more.

2) Where in the balance between: making a Toastmasters meeting fun, by over-acting the switching between multiple roles; and pointing out that in a professional setting, you probably would not, and maybe should not, make a show of switching roles (unless there is a professional reason to indicate a separation of roles).

To me, I would think that a General Evaluator should point out cases like this as a good way to have fun, but to remind multiple-role-participants to keep in mind a more profession approach to handling multiple roles when they are outside of Toastmasters.