Today I am interviewing Colin William, winner of the District 40 Evaluation Contest in 2002, a finalist in the World Championship of Public Speaking in 2008, and a professor who has evaluated student speeches every class he has taught for 11 years (guesstimate of over 2,000 evaluations).
What are the challenges of evaluating a speech?
I find it challenging to exist in two mental modes at once, that of listener and that of evaluator. The latter inevitably distracts attention from the former, and the simple act of taking notes and organizing thoughts can break one’s perception of the flow of the speech. Moreover, evaluating puts one in a different experience from the rest of the audience, who get to enjoy the speech as it was intended. As such, evaluation is a little artificial and detached, as opposed to the immersive experience of listening and enjoying.
Can giving speech evaluations help someone become a better speaker?
Absolutely! We all start out in Toastmasters with a skill set; we then pick up more skills as we watch others and work the manuals. However, one never truly appreciates the breadth of skills and techniques out there until one pays close, detailed attention to other speakers. Over the years I have evaluated people who possess a broad range of abilities – excellent storytellers, informative speakers, demonstrative physical speakers, and many others. I have been able to share with them my thoughts from my own skill set, and in turn I have learned a lot from evaluating their speeches.
Once I became practiced in evaluation, I found that I started paying more attention to the techniques of speakers outside Toastmasters – colleagues, actors, politicians. I was astounded at how much I had been missing before! And so now my own speaking development is built not just on my own practice, but also on my evaluations of others both within and beyond TM.
Is a great speaker necessarily a great evaluator?
Not necessarily, but I think that will be the case more often than not. I think there are very, very few people out there who are “naturally” good speakers; every great speaker has to put in a lot of work to reach that level. As such, they will have the knowledge and experience necessary to help others grow, and to provide the kind of feedback they might not get from less experienced speakers.
Where a great speaker would perhaps be most likely to fall short as an evaluator is in the ability to distill this knowledge into supportive feedback that is appropriate to the needs of another speaker. I’m a baseball fan, and one of the lessons of baseball history is that those who are great hitters or pitchers are not necessarily great coaches or managers – Bob Gibson and Ted Williams became easily frustrated in their coaching and managerial roles. However, within Toastmasters the supportive mindset and environment will generally preclude this.
What is the benefit of good feedback?
Good feedback will tell a speaker something they don’t know, something they might be surprised to learn, and something that can be applied the next time they speak. As such, the next time the person speaks they give a better speech, and feel more confident in doing it.
What is the difference between a good evaluator and a great evaluator?
A good evaluator will often evaluate based on his own experiences and what he’s heard from others. A great evaluator will tailor what she’s saying to the specific needs of the speaker. Good evaluators typically stick to fairly conventional feedback; great speakers think outside the box and imagine possibilities. A good evaluator will often speak in terms of ways a person could change. A great evaluator will be able to give examples to make such suggestions concrete. A good evaluator will help another person learn; a great evaluator will learn from every evaluation she gives.
Most of all, a great evaluator doesn’t just give information, a great evaluator makes someone want to act on it. A great evaluation should leave the speaker excited for her next speech, thinking ahead to the things she could do based on what she just learned.
What one piece of advice would you give a fellow Toastmaster to help elevate their evaluations?
Talk with the speaker before you evaluate. For all the technical skills one can learn, all the advice one might give, nothing is more important than learning about the goals of the speaker, where he is in his development, and what he’s looking to get out of the experience. The most coherent, well-delivered, thoughtful eval in the world will be useless if it doesn’t meet the needs and goals of the speaker.
You recently made it to the World Championship of Public Speaking finals in Calgary. What role did evaluations play in your preparation?
As a speech contestant at that level one receives many offers to practice in front of audiences, and one receives lots of feedback. That can be very helpful, but it also places evaluations in perspective. Some of the comments will help, some will not, some will be contradictory. One has to learn to take ownership of the speech, and to try to figure out what to absorb and what to discard. It’s easy to let this overwhelm one’s own instincts, but it’s a striking reminder that an evaluation is, in the end, one person’s opinion.
Beyond what I directly learned from practice audiences, I never would have gotten to the final had I not first become accomplished in evaluating and learning from the speaking of others. I’d see things in other people that I’d never imagined in myself. I tried out these skills – some worked and some didn’t, but in all cases I stretched and grew. I’m sure that when I watch the contest DVD, I’ll be able to use my evaluation skills to learn from the other speakers, and that will affect my future growth.
Do you have any evaluation stories you would like to share?
Every club has (I hope) its success stories. In one of my clubs I’ve seen a few speakers advance from nervous novice to district contest level. It made me proud not only to see them reach this level, but for me to be able to learn from them as I evaluated, to see strengths they had developed that I hadn’t yet harnessed myself. Such is the circular nature of evaluation – I helped them grow within the club, and I learn from watching them, and from the evaluations they give me.
At a personal level, my most exciting and frustrating experience as an evaluator was winning the district 40 evaluation contest. It was exciting to win, but somehow I managed to draw the last speaking position in almost every level of the contest, including the final. Because of that, I never got to see what the other evaluators did, and couldn’t learn from them.
Beyond giving evaluations, I’ve also conducted evaluation workshops. One point I always like to hammer home is that evaluation is not necessarily about pointing out things the speaker did wrong. Many evaluators get hung up on that, trying to find something the speaker can “fix”. I like to point out that a good evaluation doesn’t just look for broken things to fix, it also can identify good skills that could be harnessed into great ones. When I encourage people to imagine great possibilities for the person they’re evaluating it’s like a light bulb goes off; they’d never considered that as an option.
Have your evaluation skills helped you as a husband or a parent?
Wow, there’s an interesting question. I’d like to say these skills could help me, but I’ll be honest and admit I don’t apply them as much as I could. However, I do try to provide supportive, motivational feedback to my son in all things he does.
The most important area of application for me has been professionally. I require a speech presentation from every student in all of my classes. Prior to joining TM I felt like I gave them good feedback, but after joining TM I learned how to evaluate in a more structured manner, on the fly. Evaluating in Toastmasters has made me a more proficient, supportive evaluator of my students’ speeches in the classroom.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Evaluate whenever you get the chance! The more you do it, the more you notice, the more you learn, and the better you get, at both evaluating and at speaking. There’s nothing more fulfilling in TM than helping another person grow, and watching him or her become a better speaker as a product of their effort as helped by your insight.
Thank you Colin for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience with us. Colin maintains a website at http://tm.drcolin.net including a look inside his WCPS experience.
Posted under Interview
This post was written by john on October 23, 2008
