Whitewash Evaluations – The Route of all Evil

March 9, 2010

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If I hear one more evaluation that fails to give me a point for improvement, I am going to scream!!!

I may not like the point for improvement, I may not agree with it - but I still want to hear it. I come to Toastmasters to become a more effective speaker and that is never going to happen while people keep telling me I’m a strong speaker and they couldn’t find a recommendation for improvement. When it comes to new members I’m willing to let this go to a certain extent but after 6 months – 1 year in Toastmasters, shouldn’t the format of evaluations be clear?

C: Commend. Say what you liked / what was good / what worked in the speech and WHY it was good.

R: Recommend. Say what you didn’t like / what could be improved / what could be more effective in the speech and WHY this needs to be changed next time/why it didn’t work. Also, discuss HOW to improve this aspect – give the speaker a technique or tip to help them change.

C: Commend. Discuss another aspect of the speech you liked and WHY it was effective.

S: Summarise key points / reinforce statements in a positive manner. This should be a sentence long at most, just wrapping it up.

The whitewash doesn’t help anyone – not the speaker and not the evaluator. I refuse to believe that any speaker had PERFECT: eye contact / gestures / body language / use of voice / structure / pronunciation / facial expression / connections between ideas / use of pauses / audience engagement / use of language / etc. If they did, I want to see that speaker in action because in all my time in Toastmasters, I have never met a speaker who was perfect. Some of them are fantastic and outstanding and utterly brilliant – but every speaker can always improve.

As evaluators, it’s our job to help our fellow Toastmasters to become more effective speakers. Let’s do it properly.

Market to Market

March 2, 2010

tenaciousT Lightbulbs, Resources, Toasties , , , Leave a comment

I’m not a marketing guru. However, there is an element of marketing that interests me. It’s about identifying your target market, so that you can advertise your product most effectively. When organizing a PR (public relations) campaign in your Toastmasters club, I strongly advise that before you do anything, consider:

  1. If you’re just advertising a club event or actively seeking new members
  2. If you’re looking for new members, what sort of members you want (ie. target market)
  3. Where and how to advertise your club so that these members see it

It’s a simple thing to do and this is where my Link of the Month comes in to play. On the website of the Australian Bureau of Statistics there is an option to look at particular statistics for suburbs, based on the most recent census data. You can view the suburb or the entire electoral area. The resulting page will supply details about the gender, age, population density, nationality, labour force, occupations, industries, incomes, families and dwellings for your selected area.

Why not read through this information and use it to adjust your marketing campaign for new members accordingly? If a substantial proportion of people in the area are under 30, then building an effective website and holding a social event might be a good approach. If there are large numbers living in unit blocks close together, it could be time effective to do a letterbox drop.

In the same way we adjust our speeches once we get to know our audience, why not adjust our PR campaigns to our target markets? Let me know what you think of this link.

Stop saying really!

February 26, 2010

tenaciousT Lightbulbs, Resources, Toasties Leave a comment

Have you ever found yourself delivering an evaluation and saying “that was really good…” and “I really enjoyed this…” then a moment later “I really felt that…” – then sat down afterwards realised that in your 2-3 minute evaluation you said “really” 19 times?

Well here is your solution: Evaluation Cheat Sheet.

I’m not doing all the work for you though. This sheet is designed to get you started – build your own vocabulary of positive, negative and neutral words for use in your evaluations. Instead of saying “That was really good”, try “That was excellent”.

Instead of saying “I couldn’t find a recommendation for improvement”, scan the areas for evaluation – can you honestly say that the speaker was perfect in every category?

I hope I never hear a “really” ordinary evaluation again – they should all be extraordinary!

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