• You should have used your hands more
• You should stop moving around the room
• Your vocal variety should be more expressive
• You should loosen up and enjoy the experience
• I feel you should have read the objectives of the speech

Nobody likes being should on!

1. Connect with the speaker.
2. Connect with the audience.
3. Give one specific, actionable, and heartfelt piece of advice that will help both speaker and audience on their path.

Simplified of course, but critical.

The useful element of this sort of criticism isn’t that the fact that people in the status quo don’t like your idea. Of course they don’t. The interesting question is: what about the world as it is would have to change for your idea to be important?

When you get feedback on your speech, take a second look at the criticism.  There’s gold in these comments.  Not all mind you.  You will have to sift through them.  But somewhere in the comments will be a glimmering light that can guide you onto better communication. 

Just because you made someone uncomfortable doesn’t mean you stop.  One of the best examples is Darren LaCriox’s winning international speech.  He stayed down “too long.”

What can you do in your next speech to challenge the status quo?  Think ahead to next International Speech Contest.  What can you do to break the mold?

From Seth Godin:

When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.