A Friend Indeed

Soulful sufi music – has always been an integral part of me. It helps me relax when I am in turmoil. Of late, I have been drawn a lot towards Persian sufi kalaam of legends like Rumi and Amir Khusro.

In addition to Sufi music, Public speaking has also been an integral part of me for the past 6 years. Like every veteran toastmaster would agree, I start drawing similarities to Public speaking with anything I experience.

Recently I was listening to this kalaam:

Na shawad nasib-e-dushman ke shawad halaak-e-teghad
Sar-e-dostaan salamat, ke tu khanjar azmayii

With the limited knowledge of Farsi that I have, it translates to: “It is not the destiny of your enemy to be killed by your sword; Your friends’ heads are still safe, so you may continue testing your skills”.

The moment I heard this, I thought about my favorite topic in  – Speech Evaluation.

A speech evaluator is supposed to be the best friend of the speaker (at least during the evaluation session). And all speech evaluators are constantly reminded – “your evaluation should be encouraging and positive”. And sometimes, we get so carried away with making the evaluation so called “positive”, that it becomes a flowery narration of what the speaker did, and kills his/her skills rather than adding value to his speaking skills.

I asked couple of my toastmaster friends about their opinion on positive and encouraging evaluations.

Arun Goyal said – “It’s good as long as you are helping the speaker to improve. It’s not about impressing the audience.”

According to Jagrut Vaishnav, “Encouraging feedback is one that makes a speaker to feel to take the stage again with more enthusiasm.”

What’s my take on a “positive” evaluation? I believe, as an evaluator, I can’t make a speaker a world champion overnight. But I can do something to put him in that direction. One step at a time. One tip at a time. One area of improvement at a time. As an evaluator, if I am able to analyze the speech, and come up with just one practical feasible doable suggestion that the speaker can incorporate in his/her immediate next speech with ease, I have done my job of pushing the speaker up that one step.

How do I achieve that? Which area do I focus on? Delivery? Content? Body Language? Voice?

Where do I make one hit that will make the biggest impact?

For that, I need to analyze the speaker before Ianalyze the speech.

For example, free-flowing body language may be a big challenge for one speaker. He is so conscious about it that it is difficult to change right away. Now if my whole evaluation revolves around body language, the speaker will start looking for excuses to avoid his next speech.

Instead, if I see that his content is good, but missing in organization. I can make the biggest impact if I help him with tips on properly organizing his speech in general; and just one part of organization in particular – say transitions. Give him tips on transitions. Something that he can immediately implement in his next speech.

This is just an example ad there are no hard and fast rules. The job of a speech evaluator is more than reading project objectives before the speech and doing everything in his/her ability to win that best evaluator ribbon at the end of the session.

Be a friend indeed. Use the sword of evaluation, not to behead your speaker’s skill, but to sharpen it, one stroke at a time.

Toastmaster  Mubeen N

CC, ALB

Speech Evaluation

Ask any speaker where the maximum learning happens, and you will get an unanimous answer – Evaluation.

Some call it speech analysis. Others call it giving feedback? Yes, an evaluator does analyze a speech and provide feedback, but I prefer to stick to the word  Evaluation, as it epitomizes the act of adding value to a speaker. An evaluator may get as microscopic as possible, dissect the speech, provide an excellent analysis and feedback on the speech, but if that doesn’t add value, it is not evaluation.

Every Evaluation Workshop talks about the nuances and techniques of speech evaluation – compartmentalization, sandwich approach, the CRC model and many others with fancy names. Whatever approach you follow, unless you  keep in mind the following 3 points, an evaluation may fail at adding value.

Every speaker is a work in progress:

I heard this from my mentor DTM Nagaraja Rao at multiple instances. When you look at a building that is under construction, with ugly scaffoldings, and construction material littered everywhere, you don’t criticize its ugliness, because you know it is work in progress. You rather look and imagine what it is going to look like on completion. Also you don’t compare it with other buildings or constructions, because you know each one is unique in its characteristics. The same is with a speaker. Every speaker is a work in progress. Every speaker is different from every other speaker.

Look at the potential the speaker you are evaluating has, and suggest what he/she can do to climb the next step.

Every speaker has a good side:

We talk about “Areas of Improvement” but what results is a list of things that the speaker DID NOT do. You didn’t look at the left side of the audience. Your pacing was not purposeful.

Think about the phrase Areas of Improvement. Whichever dictionary I referred to, each of them defined improvement as making something better.

•     To bring into a more desirable or excellent condition
•     To make something more useful, profitable, or valuable
•     To increase the value of
•     To make good use of

So Improvement happens on something good that is already there. It is absolutely impossible that a speaker doesn’t have anything good. Look for it, highlight it. Let the speaker know, and encourage him/her to work on it. Working on strengths is always more effective than working on mistakes. Working on strengths gives the boost, the confidence, the self-esteem that gradually helps get rid of the petty nuances like forgetting to address the toastmaster of the day, forgetting to keep hands unclasped, forgetting the speech in between.

Transformation – one step at a time:

The Pareto Principle or the 80x20 rule is applicable even for speech evaluations. There are 20% of things that a speaker needs to do, to bring about an 80% improvement in his/her speech. Look out for those 20% areas. Pick JUST ONE item from those 20%. Be specific, and tell the speaker exactly what needs to be done to move towards the 80% improvement in the next speech.

In conclusion, the purpose of a speech evaluation is not an analysis or post-mortem of a speech by an expert, but a sincere effort to add value to the speaker by someone who cares.

Toastmaster  Mubeen N
CC, ALB