World Champion Evaluator evaluating like a champion

I recently had the pleasure to interview Rich Hopkins, a 2-time competitor in the World Championship of Public Speaking (WCPS), about evaluations.

In addition to finishing 3rd in the 2006 WCPS, Rich has been a 5 time District Evaluation Contest Finalist, winning 3 of those 5 times.  He has been a Toastmaster for over 10 years and has expanded significantly on Toastmaster evaluation theory as a professional speaker and presentations coach.

Visit Rich’s blog to see his current progress towards making it a 3rd time to the WCPS and also follow Rich on Twitter.

Starting Monday on this blog and continuing until Friday, Rich will answer  questions on evaluations including:

• How to describe evaluations to someone that has never been to a Toastmasters meeting.
• How to get more comfortable evaluating speakers.
• How to improve your evaluation skills.
• How evaluations relate to being a professional speech coach.

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An excellent article that asks whether you are criticising or evaluating.

The information here is practical for the upcoming Toastmasters Evaluation Contest too.

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Question 13: How do you go about being spot on in finding one key area to focus on for improvement?

This is an interesting question as I don’t know that I am necessarily spot on in the areas I focus on.

Experience plays its part although I think that confidence plays a big part too.  When you suggestion areas for improvement with confidence, that confidence is passed on to the speaker and the audience.  When you make suggestions without confidence, you can make the best suggestions in the world, but the speaker will likely ignore them.

I also don’t usually suggest just one area for improvement.  As my skill improves, I make more and more suggestions for improvement in such a way that they don’t even come across as such.  We learn the simple sandwich technique early on, 2 pieces of bread surrounding 1 layer of meat.  The true power comes from multi-level sandwiches where there are many more thinner pieces of bread with meat layers that are not so obvious.

So, don’t worry too much about finding the one key area.  Make suggestions you are comfortable with.  Do it with confidence.

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Question 12: There are often so many comments that could be offered during an evaluation, how do you select the comments to share during the oral evaluation?

It is definitely a good problem to have when you have more material than you can share for the oral evaluation.  The reason it is a good problem is that you get to pick and choose what to include.  Picking and choosing will help you formulate a more cohesive evaluation.

As an example, assume the speaker could improve in the following ways:

• Slow down rate of speech
• Add more pauses
• Maintain eye contact longer
• Tell more personal stories
• Stop clasping hands
• Move around more
• Have their conclusion tie into their beginning
• Use the rule of three more

In general, I would recommend an evaluator focus on just 3 areas.  These 3 areas could be all vocal variety, all physical related, all structure related.  The choice is simpler if the speech objectives intersect with some areas for improvement.  If they don’t, or you are performing an evaluation for a contest, then see if you can pick areas for improvement that tie in with the speech.  For instance, if the speech is about social networking, you could talk about how to build a connection with your audience through longer eye contact, slower rate of speech, and less clasping of hands.

Build your repertoire of areas speakers can improve so that you have choices when it comes to delivering your evaluations.

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Question 11: What did you do to improve your ability to give kind, yet meaningful evaluations?

To improve my ability to give kind, yet meaningful evaluations, I pay attention to every evaluation I hear.  How did they structure their evaluation?  How did they phrase the feedback?  How meaningful was the evaluation?

When you really look at other evaluators in a critical way, you start to notice patterns.  Great evaluators use “I” statements instead of “you” statements.  Great evaluators also don’t appear to be self-concious when giving areas for improvement.  The feedback comes from a place of confidence.  Finally, great evaluators are doing the evaluation for the speaker rather than to show-off how great an evaluator they are.

Pay attention to each and every evaluator.  Attend other club meetings to get variation.  Districts often have evaluation workshops where you can learn a lot and also ask questions.  Attend evaluation contests and see if you can determine why some participants placed and others didn’t.

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Question 10: What do you listen for when you are the evaluator?

Evaluations help develop good listening skills.  It follows then that there should be something to listen for when you are evaluating a speech.  Well, it is true to the extent that you listen for everything!

Many people don’t conciously notice ums and ahs until they have attended a Toastmaster meeting.  From that day on, each um and ah that is uttered jars our brains.  There is no going back to our previous state of ignorance.  The grammarian and the ah-counter both focus our attention to help us develop that particular listening skill.

There’s a lot more than ums and ahs though.  There’s pauses, volume, storytelling, emotion, active voice, and countless other things you can listen for.

So, what do I pick?  Well, I subconciously listen for all of them.  As my experience and knowledge increases, I add more things I can listen for.  Pay attention to every evaluator in your club.  What is the grammarian pointing out?  Maybe they pointed out lip smacks, or use of the word “so.”  Did you hear them?  Most people don’t.  Make a note to next time listen out for them.  Especially useful is to note things other people point out for you.  Maybe you use the word “thing” a lot.  Well, make a note to check for that next time you are grammarian.  That way you bring attention to your own use of the word as well as helping others.

The bottom line is that I open my ears and listen.  What comes in is through years of experience and an open mind.

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Question 9: How do you develop good listening skills?

By keeping your mouth closed!

There are a number of ways you can develop listening skills related to speech evaluations.  The first and foremost way is to join Toastmasters and start doing speech evaluations.  Let’s assume though that you are already a member of Toastmasters.  How can you further develop your evaluation skills?

The best way is to do speech evaluations – when you are not that speakers evaluator.  Why pass up opportunities to evaluate?  You actually get more feedback this way.  If you have no role, then you need to be evaluating all of the speakers.  Then, once you have done that, evaluate each of the assigned evaluators.  Finally, evaluate the general evaluator too!  Don’t just sit there twiddling your thumbs!!!  For a 3-speaker meeting that is 7 extra roles you just took care of.  For 6 of these roles you can compare what you wrote against what the assigned evaluator said.

If you do have a role, then I suggest the same thing.  Doing two roles such as grammarian and evaluator will seem hard to begin with, but as you do it more, you will develop your listening muscles to the point where you can do it with ease.  Your listening skills improve and as a result, your evaluation skills improve too.

You can also evaluate other speeches.  There are plenty on YouTube.  There are also many available from Toastmasters on DVD.  Finally, you can evaluate speeches on TV – both formal speeches and also from regular TV shows.

Take all the opportunities available to you to really develop one of the best skills available to you.

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Question 8: What if someone is just REALLY awful? How in the WORLD do you give a good evaluation?

This used to be a fear of mine.  How to be honest without hurting someones feelings.  It seems like a real conundrum… until you remember that the evaluation is not about you as the evaluator.  The evaluation is about the speaker.  You are delivering them a gift.  The gift of feedback that they can use to improve.

With this in mind, the best way to give a good evaluation is to think about the evaluation from the speakers point of view.  What feedback do they need to improve?

In the case of a novice speaker that is “REALLY awful,” applauding their willingness to step out in front of an audience may be all they need to develop some confidence to do it again.  Maybe you could go on for ages about their vocal variety, gestures, movement, etc.  None of this will help this novice speaker.  They need a lot of praise and 1 single area for improvement related to an area of praise.  As an example, you could praise how the speaker became visibly more comfortable when talking about their pets.  Then suggest that they tell some stories about their pets for their next speech to build on that confidence.

In the case of an experienced speaker that is “REALLY awful,” you have more leeway to address the problem.  Focus on statements from your point of view using “I” language, such as “I would have liked to see you use those big gestures I saw in your contest speech.” or “I love how confident and spontaneous your table topics have become.  I would like to see you take that raw ability and apply it to your prepared speeches.”  Don’t forget to follow these suggestions up with concrete examples illustrating how they can achieve these goals.

Remember that the primary intent of the evaluation is to help the speaker.

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Question 7: What is your check-list for listening to a speech and preparing an evaluation?

I actually don’t have a formal check-list for listening to a speech or for preparing an evaluation.  I start with a blank piece of paper and start writing as the speech unfolds.

I know that some people prepare the piece of paper before the speech begins.  Some people split it vertically into 2 sections, 1 for strengths and 1 for weaknesses.  Others split horizontally into 3 sections, 1 for beginning, 1 for body, and 1 for conclusion.  I also know that some people split the piece of paper into areas of a speech that they are going to look at such as vocal variety, gestures, etc.

I think that using a prepared format or a check-list can be very helpful for beginning evaluators.  It has the advantage of providing a framework.  It unfortunately has the disadvantage of boxing the evaluator in.  I would be worried that I miss something by focusing less on the speech and more on my logistics.  It really comes down to whether the evaluation is more about you as the evaluator or the speaker.

If you do use a format or a check-list, vary it so you don’t get comfortable with it.  Step out of your boundaries and you will grow.

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Question 6: What is whitewashing and how can it be avoided?

I previously talked about whitewashing here.  The definition from Dictionary.com:

anything, as deceptive words or actions, used to cover up or gloss over faults, errors, or wrongdoings, or absolve a wrongdoer from blame.

As I have pointed out previously, there really is no such thing as a perfect speech.  If we assume that to be true, then an evaluation that doesn’t suggest improvement is a whitewash.

I have noticed an increase in whitewash evaluations.  Typically it is a result of a Toastmaster giving an evaluation to a more experienced Toastmaster.  It can be daunting to evaluate someone very good at speaking.  But, by not giving honest areas for improvement, you are short changing the speaker.

One way to avoid whitewashing is to ask the speaker ahead of time for areas to concentrate on in the evaluation.  We are our own toughest critics, so this may give areas where the speaker is weak.  Another question to ask is what the speakers goals are for the speech and address whether they met those goals.  Often speakers will meet some but not all goals, so again this is an area that can be fruitful.

The bottom line though is that you need to treat evaluations as a gift to the speaker.  They really want to know how to improve.  It is one of the main reasons that Toastmasters is so useful.

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