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.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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