FOCUS

JAN- APRL 2022

ISSUE NO: 10

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF MORATUWA TOASTMASTERS CLUB

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF MORATUWA TOASTMASTERS CLUB We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.

FOCUS

We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.

JUNE-APRIL JANDEC 2021 2022

ISSUE ISSUE NO: NO: 10 9

MORATUWA TOASTMASTERS CLUB

Club Officers 2021/2022 President Ruchitha Perera

VP Education Poojani Perera

VP Membership Shamaran Satkunathan

District 82, Division D, Area 04 Club Number 01861319 Meeting Days 2nd and 4th Saturday

Meeting Time VP Public Relations Arosha Kalupahana

5:00 PM- 7.00PM

Secretary Nadee Balasuriya

Meeting Location

MJF Charitable Foundation, Katubedda.

Treasurer Chamila Rathnayaka

Contact details 0775270708 Sergeant at Arms Nisaja Weerakoon

TM Shamaran Satkunathan (VP Membership) Moratuwa Toastmasters moratuwatms

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Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. Our organization has more than 357,000 memberships. Members improve their speaking and leadership skills by attending one of the 16,600 clubs in 143 countries that make up our global network of meeting locations

Toastmaster International Mission We empower individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders.

Toastmasters International Core Values  Integrity  Respect  Service  Excellence District Mission We build new clubs and support all clubs in achieving excellence.

Moratuwa Toastmasters Club Mission We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.

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CONTENTS

Meeting corner Message – President / Editor’s MJF Kids Speech craft programme How Public Speaking in Toastmasters changed me New members of Moratuwa Toastmasters Stay Happy Stay Focused Achievements

“People, we are born with different strengths, it’s a matter of identifying those and ensure they are put in a position where they can succeed” -TM Rukshan Perera

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Club President's Message -

TM Ruchitha Perera

Dear toastmasters and friends, As the current president of the Moratuwa Toastmasters club I would like to write a few lines. We are going through a difficult and challenging time. It is important to understand the value we offer as a club to our members and all the stake holders involved. We will continue to offer every opportunity for members to develop their public speaking, presentation skills and leadership skills.

We have also recommence MJF kids speech craft programme every Saturday on a monthly basis starting April 2022. And I thank all those who are involved.

Editor’s Message

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TM Arosha Kalupahana

Hello Readers, It gives me great pleasure to present my second newsletter of “Focus” for the Moratuwa Toastmasters club for Jan- April 2022. This is the 10th issue of the Focus newsletter. It has been a privilege to work with an enthusiastic and creative team and to have created a publication showcasing all the highlights, achievements, events, and memories of our club for the last few months. I strongly believe that everyone who reads this newsletter will take away lots of learning. In this newsletter I have included the New members and the achievements of the club and the highlights of the MJF kids Speech craft programme.

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to our official newsletter of Moratuwa Toastmasters Club.

Feel free to drop me an email with your feedback after reading this. I love to receive your comments.

Happy Reading!

Arosha Kalupahana Editor- “Focus” -10th Issue (Vice President – Public Relations) aroshakalupahana@gmail.com

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How Public Speaking in Toastmasters changed me TM Poojani Perera Vice President- Education

A

s I am the Vice President in

Moratuwa Toastmasters Club yet I was not the person I had been before, I was a girl afraid to speak boldly and had fear to speak fluently in front of an unknown audience.

Simply I was an introvert. After my father dragged me to Toastmasters meeting , there I met friends and was keen in joining meetings and being a part of the club as well. I still remember how I failed in my very first Table topic speech and also being nervous on my first Ice Breaker speech as well. Eventually I got the opportunity to many events in D82 and Area Contests as well. I have been a part of “Moving From Speaker To Trainer” , “Ignite 2021” and now a part of the team in “Ovation 2022”.

I have learnt so many during my Toastmasters journey and enjoyed every moment which is priceless, also I have been connecting with many people through Toastmasters and have built friendships as well.

From an introvert to being an extravert in my life is amazing and it is because I have gain confidence in me by developing myself to take the next step in life.

I have always been able to look at the positives in my life as well as others especially because of the positive environment that every club has built in Toastmasters.

Toastmasters have helped me to improve my public speaking, removed stage fright and has brought me a long way where I have been boldly interviewing Professional Trainers relating to our business which is a success of my life. We always tend to have negative feelings about ourselves and doubt the capabilities we can do because of a weakness we see in our life. We all have weaknesses but overcoming them and moving forward takes courage and it‟s definitely will be a turning point in everyone‟s lives.

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I am thankful for all my Toastmasters colleagues and Mentors who have given me this great opportunity in order to achieve a simple task in my life. Now I am committed as the VPED in my club to help members to grow and learn, to organize quality meetings and also help them in every way possible.

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Stay Happy Stay Focused - TM Ruchira Fernando

W

hat are we doing right at

this particular moment? Are we being ourselves and enjoying our life dimensions or are we trying to perceive an imagination that doesn‟t procure ourselves? in life the key segment which demonstrates the reality is the perspective of vision. It is the optimistic idea that focus has been built upon. If the human perspective has been arranged in a scope of positivity, it builds his character in accordance to create a significant feature which is interpreted as „focus‟. It is the top priority factor that builds are motive and enables us to move step by step as in-order to be adequate with our accomplishments.

Happiness has its own methodologies. It is made to be identified within the boundaries of a particular individual. It has been created to investigate and evaluate our own presence of mind which exaggerates the portions of self-preservation that is absorbed as a result of positive evaluations.

It is evident that the human mind has been adjusted to determine its personality with the

ability to re-create its natural growth by understanding the essential platforms through focus, But this particular mechanism takes a lot of courage, determination to be perceived upon oneself.

This process seems obnoxious if we take these factors to be tedious due to its percentage of progress. As a matter of fact, this process of attaining ourselves to be confident as in-order to achieve the unimaginable through the proper relationships that we build within ourselves literally formulates a character with resoluteness and robustness within itself. And that individual can be termed as somebody who is willing to go the extra distance despite the catastrophes due to the „focus‟ he has set himself on.

We face a lot of obstacles and destructions in this journey called sustaining happiness. This journey can be converted into a ray of hope if we acquire the necessity through the composed behavior that we have processed to be.

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JAN- APRIL 2022 It is the challenges that gives wisdom with the intention to be a focused individual where, selfsatisfaction acts as a golden platform with gigantic number of opportunities. It can be very difficult to identify who we really are and what we really are capable of? But deep down inside we all have somebody that we always dreamt of.

It is that particular individual that creates the magical energy by keeping our mind a place of tranquility. This version of oneself is what we really are in search for. and it may seem far away from what we are based on at this moment but unarguably it is what we are procuring to be and with the right discovery of our abilities, this process is evidently achievable.

ISSUE NO: 10 The best thing about this journey of attaining character through happiness relies on what we focus our mindsets to be. It is the element that creates all these possibilities to become a real-life scenario. The best is yet to come and the most surprising roads are ahead of us and what we need to do is to create the rootss of happiness by embarking wisdom upon ourselves, we can and we certainly will.

Therefore, let us begin to find this lost version of ourselves through the magical essence of hope that has been guiding us throughout this wonderful journey of jubilation.

Happiness is the bedrock that connects all the units together to be in precise amounts where, the features of life can be perceived through the sense of vision which creates a lot of optimistic impacts by analyzing our natural features to be more achievable and efficient in vivid atmospheres.

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JUNE- DEC 2021 “People, we are born with different strengths, it’s a matter of identifying those and ensure they are put in a position where they can succeed” -TM Rukshan Perera

“Experience is considered to be an individual’s perceptions of his or her presence in the world at the moment when things, truths or values are constituted” Common understanding of a layman when the word talent rings in one‟s year the common understanding of a layman will bring an image of a singer, an artist, a musical group, a dance troop, or a sportsman into most of their mind with a strong emphasis on the meaning “unbelievable performance “of an individual or the group. The majority of the population in the world has failed to understand and realize the true meaning and power of the word talent. Albert Einstein once said "Everyone is a genius” but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Genius comes from the Latin word “innate ability” which Einstein says is, if we all find our innate ability and put them to work, we will become genius. Why did he say if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid? Simply he wants us to know our inheritance, know what we are created for, know what we are capable of, know what we enjoy doing, and stay in our circle of competence and all people will call us genius and not stupid. In 1997, a group of McKinsey consultants published a report that highlighted a shortage of talent for organizations and the consequences

this had on their growth.

They called it “the war for talent”. This report, “The war for talent”, is often stated to be the beginning of TM as its own research field (Axelrod et al., 2002; Björkman et al., 2007, Collings & Mellahi, 2009; Schuler et al., 2011a). A talented person fulfills knowledge, skill, and attitude (Campbell 1990) if organizations could recruit talented employees, they fulfill the most important criteria namely knowledge, skill, and attitude which are the most important characteristics of any good performer in an organization. Jim Collins who authored Good to Great says that 95% of the world population does not know, the great truth, employees who are talented, perform extremely well than other employees in an organization. They perform because they possess knowledge, skill, and attitude in them due to talent.

Former General Electrical CEO Jack Welch found at General Electrical that there was 20% talented personnel and those are called “A” team, 60% average, those are called “B” Team and 20% weak employees are called “C” team. He said the organization invests in the 20% which was the “A-Team”, develop the 60%, and managed the 20%. Einstein says all people in this world are genius and how could 80% of employees be not genius according to Jack Welch? The 80% most probably were not identified the innate ability and put it to work to become the “A” team 10

JAN- APRIL 2022 employees. Research has revealed that in most organizations “A” team members are less than 10% of the total number employed. Aristotle once said “Where you‟re talents and the world's needs cross, there lies your vocation.” What he says is your vocation that you are engaged in, should be based on your talent.

Jim Collins stated in his book called Good To Great, a talented person is known as the right person. The right person in the Right Place at the Right time transforms a good company into a great company in this world. If this is true, then how to spot a talented and a gifted employee in your team and place them in the right seat to make an organization a competitive one, and a great one Jim Collins states that talented and gifted employees make great organizations in this world.

“Talent refers to the total of all the experience, individual values, knowledge, skills, and behaviors that a person brings with them and its fit with the organization in which they work” Talent evolution The term talent in Old English (used up until 1149) was talente, which originated from the Latin term talentum (Knowles, 2005; Stevenson, 2010). The Latin term, in turn, originated from the Greek word tálanton [τάλαντον], which means “balance, weight, the sum of money” (Hoad, 1996). Originally, a talent denoted a unit of weight used by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans (Cresswell, 2009). In Ancient Greece, one talent was the equivalent of 25.86 kg (Darwill, 2008; Howatson, 2011).

According to Howatson (2011), before proper coinage, Greek units of money carried the same name as units of weight since the weights of precious metals (mostly silver, occasionally gold) were used to represent a sum of money (Howatson, 2011; Knowles, 2005).

ISSUE NO: 10 This is how, ultimately, a „talent‟ became a coin. One talent corresponded to 60 minas or 6000 drachmas (Howatson, 2011).

Talent as a unit of value is mentioned in the New Testament in Jesus' parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30). The story tells us a wealthy man called his servants and gave five, three, and one talent and went on a long journey and when he came back and settled accounts with three servants. The one who got five had doubled it, the same way the one who got three has doubled, and but one who got one has not made any progress, master took the one from that servant and gave it to the one who had ten talents. 2000 years ago talents had monetary value, a currency, capital that could be reinvested, traded, multiplied, and increased.

According to Tansley (2011), the New English Bible translates the Greek word talent into the world capital. History tells us that 2000 years ago talent was referred to as capital or currency from this parable.

In the thirteenth century, the world looked at talent as a natural ability of a person, inclination to do something desired, passion, the definition of talent has broadened to mean not just money but also has a natural ability to perform well (Tansley, 2011). Hoad (1996) considers this latter definition of talent highlights the behavioral aspect of the talent of a person.

Thirteenth-century talent was identified as a natural ability and behavioral aspect according to Hord (1996).

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries talent came to mean a person's mental ability or particular abilities, divinely entrusted to them for their personal use and improvement (Hoad, 1996; Knowles, 2005). The Parable of the Talents talks about a person‟s ability vs talents, according to one‟s ability work is entrusted.

In this story, the ability is not defined as an innate, gift or earned but instead emphasizes responsibilities, workload, are being entrusted to a person based on 11

JAN- APRIL 2022 ability. The moral of the story is if do not use it, you lose it. In the fifteenth and sixteenth-century talent was perceived as an ability in people and accordingly, responsibilities were entrusted.

Talent continues to develop as a term in the 17th century the meaning of talent changed, from a capital person‟s innate skills (Knowles, 2005; Tansley, 2011).

Christian teachings suggest that it is the duty of all faithful to work with and on the talents provided to them by God (Hoad, 1996; Knowles, 2005). Talent is innate or gifts from God for a specific purpose. After the industrial revolution, the term talent moves beyond an individual‟s innate skills and gifts and it also becomes the person themselves (Knowles, 2005). Tansley, (2011) highlights that this is the first time that talent becomes an object (characteristics of people) beyond abilities and monetary values. This new meaning of talent in persons was probably influenced by societal changes, from agrarian communities to urban environments where food was not produced butinstead bought.

In this era due to more human interactions, people‟s behavior was highlighted than in production. As Michaels et al. (2001) assert, “Talent is a gift that must be cultivated, not left to languish”. The origin of talent is conceptualized as an inborn gift or natural aptitude (e.g., Gagné, 2000). A similar view of talent was held throughout the seventeenth century, talent as inborn aptitudes and skills possessed by special people but without referring to divinity (Knowles, 2005). Seventeenth-century talent becomes objective (characteristic of people) when talent is put to work faithfully and with commitment, people perform well.

In today’s context, the term talent refers to people according to Nijs et al. (2014), talent is usually an individual who has an innate ability to undertake specific tasks

ISSUE NO: 10 which is known as the subject approach to talent (talent as people). Also, the term talent refers to the characteristics of a person, known as the object approach which conceptualizes talent as characteristics of people. GallardoGallardo et al. (2013) sees talent through the exclusive lens and focuses on it being an above-average ability for either a position or specific skills. We differentiate talent as either a character or the person themselves. Today talent has evolved as an objective (innate ability) and through practice and commitment by being in the right organization, right position or place as per the natural ability and at the right time will make talented, great performers and great organizations.

Is there a difference between talents and gifts?

The bible states that gifts are given to the church (people) by God to serve the church, God gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:10). Definition of talent according to the Oxford dictionary (2015), it is defined as “natural aptitude or skill” or; “(someone who has) a natural ability to be good at something, especially without being taught”.

Talents are genetic and not learned and that‟s a person‟s heritage to be used to serve mankind in the world. Gifts are directly bestowed only to them (people of God) to serve the church. Some refer to talents are gifts from the context of talent is innate and not earned or learned and due to this talent also could be called a gift and the difference between God‟s gift and natural gift depends based on God‟s gift, is only for a set of chosen people (in the church) and to be given to serve only a set of chosen people called the church (to the church). “Everything that I have is by the grace of God, understand that it‟s a gift” speech by two-time Academy and Tony 12

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Award-winning actor, Denzel Washington went viral after it was delivered to the 218 members of the 2015 graduating class at Dillard University.

its outcome, which can be seen as creating a tautological problem (i.e., a conceptual loop; see Priem & Butler, 2001).

Is talent born or made ?

Why is this a confusion among practitioners, managers, and others in an organization, that, whether talent is made or born? Simply in organizations when employees are recruited as talented ones, the expectation of any manager is to see super performance compared to others in the organization. When this does not occur as expected, managers tend to think that talent is made and not born. Why do talented employees not perform as expected?.

The natural ability approach is the conceptualization of talent that focus on deliberate practice and learning from experience Ericsson, Prietula, and Cokely (2007). Practice creates performance in any talented person.

Therefore just because you are talented and if you do not have experience and practice you do not perform.

Due to this, managers are confused about whether talent is born or made. According to Pfeffer and Sutton (2006), in spite of all the myths, talent is always a function of experience and effort.

Although clearly, not all people have the same amount of ultimate potential, there seems to be some agreement in the literature on deliberate practice (e.g., Ericsson, 2006) and learning from experience (e.g., Briscoe & Hall, 1999) that at least 10,000 h offocused and deliberate practice are required for reaching „talented‟ levels of performance. Dries and Pepermans (2008) found that most of them were unwilling to label employees as talented before they had two or three years of organizational experience because they wanted to observe how people performed within the specific setting of the organization first. A possible issue with this type of approach is that it defines talent by

Why do the talented perform?

Talented construct as will, perseverance, motivation, interest, and passion (e.g., Weiss & MacKay, 2009). Talented always have the will and motivation to put talent into work because talent innate creates a quality of talented “Love to do” and enjoy doing what they are talented. Talent creates passion due to interest, the passion of Christ brought meaning to his existence in this world so talent creates meaning and purpose to your existence.

Talent gives meaning and purpose to anyone‟s life. When you have talented employees managers do not need to coerce them to work purely due to passion and zest in them (behavior qualities).

Talented is always preserved to be better every day as Steve Job said be hungry and be foolish. Talented are the ones who look for continuous improvement and are never satisfied with what they do thinking that there is always room for improvement.

High potential employees, then, are those employees believed to have the potential to advance at a faster pace than their peers, whilst demonstrating different needs, motivations, and behaviors than „regular‟ employees (Pepermans, Vloeberghs, & Perkisas, 2003). A talented employee is identified as more capable than others in the organization and due to this more work, more responsibilities will be given to the talented employee thereby “Mathew Effect” takes place, “Mathew Effect” concept is extracted from the gospel of Mathew in the bible says for unto every one that have shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but him that have not shall be taken, even that which he has.

Because of the “Mathew Effect” organizations benefit due to the allocation of more resources to the better performers 13

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JAN- APRIL 2022 in the organization leads to a higher return on investment, Allocating more resources to talented can expect higher returns (i.e., in improving the performance of the bestperforming employees even further; Bothner et al., 2011).

Object and subject perspective of talent

The object position is identified by managers and HRM practitioners of talented employees in the organization by focusing on their characteristics to identify the gaps to develop and improve their potential to enhance organizational objectives and goals (Dries, 2013; Lepak & Snell 1999).

The subject position focuses on identifying talented employees as individuals and persons to develop their talent to enhance organizational goals and objectives. (Dries, 2013; Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2013; Meyers et al., 2013). It is said that object position focuses on developing knowledge and skill (Farndale et al., 2010a; Lepak & Snell, 2002; Sparrow, 2012). Does the subject position focus on who is talented whether only a handful are talented or are all employees in the organization is considered talented (Björkman et al., 2013; Meyers et al, 2013)?. According to Dries (2013), many organizations are focusing on the subject of inclusive and exclusive perspectives of talent.

Argument exclusive

between

inclusive

and

Some argue that some individuals have more specific skills than others and it is important to identify those skillful individuals. Some argue that all individuals have skills and depend on how you develop the individual determines their performance (Gallardo- Gallardo, 2013; Meyers et al., 2013). Some researchers believe that you can identify highly skilled individuals maybe 1% to 10% and should invest in them (Larson & Richburg, 2004; Ledford & Kochanski, 2004; Ulrich & Smallwood, 2012). This is the exclusive approach to talent. Others disagree with this and argue that the skill is not a numerical game, instead it is a matter of how individuals are educated and taught skills that will determine their ability (Björkman et al., 2013; Warren, 2006).

This is the inclusive approach to talent.

Most organizations might not be solely following one of these approaches but instead, position themselves somewhere along an axis.

Many researchers thinking is, in an organization‟s rank one or “A players” makes the difference, and having more Aplayers will help organizations to achieve their goals and objectives thereby becoming competitive (Morton, 2005; Walker & LaRocco, 2002). Huselid & Becker (2011) argue that organizations should maximize the allocation of capital to high performers so that they can maximize the organization‟s competitive advantage.

The exclusive approach uses performance management tools to determine employee performance whereas the inclusive approach focuses on the 360 feedback model to help employees to know their gaps and help to develop each employee through these kinds of methods. The inclusive approach focuses on all employees as a talent pool to be built through internal promotions and training (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2005; Buckingham & Vosburgh, 2011; Clarke & Winkler, 2006).

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JAN- APRIL 2022 Exclusive organizations believe that it is best to spend on those that are showing results and that this will motivate others to emulate the successful ones or leave the organization to be replaced with more high achievers.

Transferable and defendant perspective of talent

Will talented people perform and display their talent according to the environment or situation they are in? Transferable perspective means that talent can be shown no matter what situation a talent is put. The context-dependent states that talent will only show itself if an individual is put in the right environment where they can succeed. Collins in his book Good to great brings a metaphor to emphasize the environment, are you on the right bus? In other words are you in the right place equal to the environment? For a good company to become a great company right person, the right environment, and the right time all three make vital to get talent from a talented employee. Studies of recruitment have found that high potentials in one firm do not always bring the appropriate specific skills to their next employers nor do they always produce similar results (Groysberg et al., 2008), however, Dineen et al. (2011) showed that even with the assumption of the best fit, recruitment is dependent upon time and environment to succeed. Further studies have shown that it is not only a matter of finding the best fit between an organization and an individual to enable a person to transfer skills, individuals need the right environment and the right support. There are multiple factors that determine what a continuous best fit is (Granovetter, 1985,

ISSUE NO: 10 Mitchell et al., 2001). Modern examples of talent attempting to transfer their skills have been met with both success and failure.

What the researcher can conclude by referring to the literature and theory is what many managers and practitioners believe is talent as “characteristics of people” called object approach is known as when a person finds his or her talent and put it to work (mastering) through commitment and finds the right organization and the right position at the right time (fit) will bring results to the individual and as well as to the organization in terms of performance.

Today many organizations practice this concept after Jim Collins published the book Good to Great to emphasize the object approach after much research is done. Today Human Resources is rephrased as talent management or human capital management, where, by picking the right talent, positioning, managing, and retaining to become a great organization in the world. Anything could be learnable but it is limited because when people have employed not all tasks that are entrusted to them to execute are not known or learned and there your natural ability can bring knowledge, skill, and creativity to complete the task successfully.

In the same manner, some organizations believe that all their employees are talented and by identifying their gaps and fulfilling knowledge and skills will make employees good performers which we called as subjective inclusive approach (Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2013, p. 297) where else as being a practitioner my experience with many organizations natural talent through practice and commitment and being in the right place creates performances much more than any other.

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MEETINGS CORNER Jan - April 2022

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MEETINGS CORNER Jan - April 2022

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MJF Kids Speech craft programme conducted by Moratuwa Toastmasters Club

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NEW MEMBER OF MORATUWA TOASTMASTERS

Name Amisha Devindi Perera School Bishop's College, Colombo Higher Studies Majoring in International Relations Kotelawala Defence University

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Moratuwa Toastmasters Club Achievements (Club Level)

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