A few weeks ago now, I attended a training seminar to help me in my job. The trainer, Dawn Jones, was wonderful and I picked up a lot of information and tools useful for other areas of my life. One of the things she mentioned has successfully worked its way into my Reticular Activating System, so now I’m hearing it everywhere. We do it a lot normally, but in Toastmasters, I am hearing it frequently in evaluations as a segueway tool. This is bad. Really bad.
What am I talking about? The word “but”. As in, “You were great…but”. What does this do? It successfully negates any positive comments made prior to the “but” and in evaluations, this draws focus onto the negative, rather than the positive. Of course we want those we are evaluating to take note of our suggestions for improvement – take note of, not focus all their energy on!
And no, it’s not okay to replace the word “but” in your feedback with the ’21st century equivalent’, as Dawn calls it. “However” will do exactly the same thing – negate whatever was said prior. Dawn gave a fantastic and truly simple piece of advice to avoid the “but” and the “however” – simply pause. As Darren LaCroix might say, let the audience think about what you’ve just said before moving onto the next point. Allow time for the thought process in the audience’s minds. Let the dust settle on one point then move on to your next one. It’s amazing what a positive difference small changes can make…
Enjoy your evaluations!
