Many people have professional degrees and diplomas, but far fewer have a qualifications in the “ability to motivate,” “inter-personal skills,” or “excellent oral and written communication” skills that appear on practically every job description in corporate South Africa.

But this is the curriculum of Toastmasters International, a global not-for-gain training organisation with around 220,000 members in 11,500 branches (called “clubs”) in around 80 countries.

One such club is Nedcor Toastmasters Club, who is slowly improving the standard of communication and leadership across the bank.

“Only 3-5 people graduate from our basic communication programme every year,” says club spokesperson Lee-Ann Schmidt, “which is surprising since the need for better communication in the workplace is so large.”

Even fewer graduate from the advanced programme. “Once the club members have completed their Competent Communicator qualification they can go on to specialise in 15 different areas, including Speeches for Management, Interpersonal Communication, Entertaining Speaking as well diverse areas such as Speaking for Television, Storytelling and even Sales,” she says.

“We fare slightly better on the leadership track. About six or seven people are elected to the club’s exco, where they run the club’s finances, marketing and operations. They also undergo specialist and general leadership training twice a year, which helps them be better leaders in the workplace.

“Because our leadership terms are only one year, Toastmasters has to grow leaders fast,” she says. “Once you’ve served on a club exco, running a club of 20 people, you can progress to running 5 clubs (around 100 members) within a year. If you choose, you can then go for the next level a year later, where you will run 20-30 clubs with 400 to 600 members.

“One year later you can be part of an exco that runs nearly 3000 members in 9 countries. Not bad for somebody who’s only been at it for four years.”

The organisation’s highest qualification takes about five years to get, and combines advanced speaking skills with advanced leadership skills. The Distinguished Toastmasters (DTM) qualification takes about as many hours as an MBA does. One of the requirements of the DTM is to build a Toastmasters Club, which is a fine test of motivational, leadership and good communications.

“Getting formal qualifications in leadership and communication through Toastmasters is a fun way to learn business skills,” she says. “And you can only get the Toastmasters qualifications if you demonstrate the ability to speak or lead.”

She says attending Toastmasters has extra benefits. “Not only are you learning to speak, but you are also learning how to run good meetings, appraise people’s performance in a motivating but honest way; you’re also learning goal-setting, self-discipline and project management at the same time.

Membership of one club automatically gives you the right to visit any club in the world, which improves networking skills. “Lots of Toastmasters have met such lovely people at meetings, they went on to get marry them,” she jokes.

In over 80 years, three million people world wide have benefited from the Toastmasters programme. There are nearly 7,000 company clubs in corporations across the world, including Nedcor, Standard Bank and Ernst and Young in South Africa but also Google, Microsoft and Caterpillar in the US.