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President's Tip of the Week

Evaluation Proteins
(3/3/09)

Last spring, President Liz authored a tip on how to evaluate speakers who were more experienced than you. I wanted to add on to her tip by sharing with you a technique I learned from our current LGET Trish as we drove down to Tucson last fall. She picked up this gem while visiting another Toastmasters club out of state. In that case, the speech being evaluated was for a contest and the speaker wanted the most valuable feedback possible. I think this technique could work for experienced speakers, regardless of the experience level of the evaluator.

“May I have your permission to help you make this a better speech?”

That’s all it is. There are multiple reasons why this is such a powerful question for an evaluator to ask.

  1. While newer speakers are often thankful to have someone acknowledge they did at least a few things well, more experienced speakers tend to place higher value on points of improvement. “Yes, I know,” the speaker might think in response to being told what was done well, “but what could I have done to make it even better?” Asking the above question will verify for you that this is, in fact, how this particular speaker feels.
  2. The audience will tend to feel uncomfortable if all the evaluator is doing is pointing out the “points of improvement.” Using this technique eliminates that potential discomfort. And the reason for that is…
  3. By answering this question with a “yes,” the speaker gives you as the evaluator permission to virtually tear the speech apart, but lets the audience relax because, after all, you’ve gotten the speaker’s permission to do exactly that.

“May I have your permission to help you make this a better speech?” is a simple and concise way to provide the speaker with the most opportunity for improvement possible during the time allotted. You may be familiar with the “sandwich technique” of evaluating. The above technique allows the speaker to skip what to them may be the unneeded carbs and go straight for the proteins that will help them grow.

Happy evaluating!

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