World Champion Evaluator evaluating like a champion

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
 
- Rudyard Kipling – Excerpt from The Elephant’s Child

There’s more to these 6 questions than initially meet the eye. Three of them are open-ended and three of them are much less so. Why would that matter? Well, open-ended questions work better at the start of a conversation, while close-ended questions work better once you have a decision.

Open-ended:

• What?
• Why?
• How?

Close-ended:

• When?
• Where?
• Who?

Never end your presentation on a question.  You will be at the mercy of the answer.  This often happens in PowerPoint presentations.  You have spewed your brain forth onto the slide and you want to know what you missed.  Avoid this.  Ask for questions throughout your presentation to engage your audience in dialogue.  If you don’t want to do that, prepare a strong conclusion that comes after the Q&A.

Finally, when you end a presentation, you can ignore the advice above and ask an open-ended question such as:

How do you see yourself making use of the information I just presented?

When you do this, you will get a sense of how well your information came across. Still follow it up with a fantastic close that ties that response into your conclusion.

Posted under Public Speaking

Does anyone in their right mind actually like criticism?

I do.  Constructive criticism that is.  I have gotten used to getting constructive feedback at Toastmasters that it heightens my perceptions when I don’t receive constructive criticism.  I am sure I physically cringe when I hear “I like it” or “I don’t like it” because they give you no information that you can use.

Today I have been reading a couple of great articles from The Closet Entrepreneur on criticism.  The first article tells you how to give criticism and the second article tells you how receiving criticism can be good for you.

The most important thing to keep in mind when giving constructive criticism is to focus on valid and unbiased feedback.

The articles talk about how to ask for criticism and who to ask. Great reading!

Posted under General

In a post directed at unemployed college students, Seth Godin talks about a fantastic post-graduate year doing the following:

• Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
• Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery.
• Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
• Start, run and grow an online community.
• Give a speech a week to local organizations.
• Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
• Learn a foreign language fluently.
• Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
• Self-publish a book.
• Run a marathon.

“If you wake up every morning at 6, give up TV and treat this list like a job, you’ll have no trouble accomplishing everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?”

Seth makes a compelling point.  I suggest you join Toastmasters and you will learn even more about communication AND increase your network, both of which will prove invaluable.

BTW, other than the possibility of running a marathon, there’s no reason why everyone that is unemployed could be doing this.

Posted under Public Speaking, Toastmasters

“If you could kick the person in the pants who is most responsible for your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

~ T Roosevelt

Posted under Quote