What Can Exupéry Teach You About Promoting Pathways

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The real problem with Pathways is not user interface, the fact they are not on paper or that they are not translated. It’s simply that they are something new. The experienced members have great memories with the old program. They did their first speeches in the Competent Communicator. They watched their mentors and Toastmasters heroes perform speeches from the (old) Humorously Speaking and Storytelling advanced manuals. They have no good reason to start loving Pathways now. Unless… “someone teaches them to long for the endless immensity of the…”

Paths.


It’s not about getting Pathways T-Shirts (how exactly does a T-shirt help?), it’s not about more educational sessions explaining Basecamp (really, you don’t need to code in javascript to use them), it’s not about showing people the adoption rate around the world (50% people in Papua New Guiney are on Pathways — so what? — cheers to Papua New Guiney). All these can help, but…

If you want to lead the change:

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Start with yourself. Do Pathways projects. Talk about the Pathways projects you did. Show the results of your Pathways projects.

By the way — have I told you that this blog started as my Level 4 Elective Pathways project?

Lukas Liebich, D110 PQD

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.