After competing in my club evaluation contest last week, a veteran Toastmaster made a very interesting comment to me. I look up to this Toastmaster a lot. I have learned a lot about evaluations from him.
He told me that he really liked the organization of my evaluation, especially because I wasn’t obvious about it. I didn’t say something like “There are three areas I would like to discuss today, area 1, area 2, area 3.” Many evaluators will say practically the same thing because it is typical to use groups of three. It can be repetitive and boring.
I didn’t use this technique last week. It wasn’t a conscious decision although I have noticed that I do it less in contests.
Why is being less obvious about the organization better?
I believe being less obvious about the organization is better because you reduce the mechanics of an evaluation. The mechanics get in the way of being genuine and sincere with your gift to the speaker. I have mentioned before that I dislike acronyms in evaluations. Often the acronym gets in the way of the evaluation.
There are various techniques that can make your evaluations easier to deliver. Remember though that the goal of an evaluation is not to make it easier for you, but to deliver the best possible feedback to the speaker.
Posted under Toastmasters
This post was written by john on March 31, 2009
I also think one of things that can affect organization is transition from positives to improvements, then back to positives.
I actually now make a concerted effort when I’m transposing my notes from the project manual to a separate eval prompt sheet to look for a way to transition from the last positive I speak about into the first opportunity to be offered. It might go something like, “John, I really was captivated by your use of the stage. You brought your energy and intensity for your subject to each of us in the different seating sections. Where I got lost sometimes though, was when you would turn your back to a portion of the audience to speak to others. Then I could hardly hear you and I felt disconnected to your great story. Perhaps when you are moving across the stage, you could back up slightly so even though you are slightly turned, everyone else in the audience can still see your face, and hear that part of your story.
This is probably the toughest part of my eval delivery sometimes, because that transition from the first set of positives to the middle opportunities does not always present itself easily.