Mentoring and Feedback

One essential feature of every self correcting system is the ability to collect, process and use feedback. When we first learn to drive a car, we over correct until we learn how to adapt to the feedback the wheel is giving us. Feedback makes it possible for us to stand and walk.

We include teachers in the educational system in part to provide feedback. While it is possible to figure out a subject like mathematics from first principles, the formal teaching tools of mentoring and feedback are far more efficient. We use mentoring and teaching to learn, practice to build experience, and feedback to understand that experience.

It is no accident that the Toastmasters program has these features, and no accident that it works well. We are taught by the example of others, mentored by those further along the path, and practice by actively working our way through the program.

In Toastmasters, the key feedback tool is evaluation. Evaluation is a skill in itself, a skill a skill we will develop here. Let's start by defining evaluation and recognizing its limits.

A Toastmasters Evaluation is a two to three minute analysis of a speech, focusing on what a speaker did well and offering some feedback to grow on. To do this, an evaluator must listen carefully, analyze quickly and summarize effectively. These essays offer a model for doing all of that.

As we grow, we learn to handle feedback more effectively. Since we are working with people at many different skill levels and trying to build a cohesive group, the kind of feedback we offer at Toastmasters is focused and limited. There can be value in going beyond those limits, but for now let's define those limits and stay within them.

A Toastmasters evaluation is your chance to change a life in three minutes.

Three minutes isn't enough time to do a complete feedback on a speech. The model I'm sharing suggests you don't even try. Focus instead on one simple goal.

Find and share the most important thing the speaker needs to know about the speech.

This book offers a step by step process for finding and sharing that that.



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Do You Use Social Networking?

As Toastmasters, our clubs provide a structure for face to face networking that is hard to match. Our fellow members learn a lot about us through our speeches, our evaluations, our table topics, and our participation in club activities. We learn about them as they become friends and a part of our business network. We find ourselves on club email lists and websites. Does it make sense to invite them into our online social networks as well? Which ones?

I would answer this question with an enthusiastic but qualified yes. The enthusiastic part (yesss!) is because this helps make you a hub in the network, allowing your fellow members to connect indirectly with other people in your life, creating weak ties that benefit all. It also provides a way of promoting each other and your Toastmasters activities to a larger network. The qualified yes (yeees...) acknowledges that this isn't worth creating and maintaining a network you don't participate in anyway. That is, joining a network exclusively to connect with Toastmasters dilutes or eliminates the benefits of participating.

Here are a couple networks I use. If you are too, I recommend reaching into your Toastmasters contacts (including me) with them.

Professional Networking

LinkedIn is more than a resume exchange and distribution service. If you use it to promote your professional activities, the word can spread. I connect with other Toastmasters here because these are the kind of connections LinkedIn is designed to work with. On LinkedIn, I will connect with any Toastmaster. If you want to connect to me, my profile is here: http://linkd.in/1EMGNZR

Club Networking

I recommend that your club set up a club Facebook page and use it to announce events and describe activities. Members should connect with the club page for the club's benefit and with each other as friends as they see fit. Here, I am more selective about who I connect with.

Other Options

Do you videorecord your speeches? If so, you can post them on YouTube and create a personal or club YouTube channel.

Where else on the Internet do you show up? If you use Google+, Pinterest, or something else to connect with your Toastmasters network, leave a comment below and let everyone know where, how and why.



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An Irish Blessing for Toastmasters

May your table topics always be brilliant,
May your evaluations always be insightful,
And may you be walking off the stage before the Devil knows you're giving a speech!

Happy St. Patriicks Day!
Jay Elkes, DTM


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone