A non-CC Toastmaster was Evaluating an Advanced Project

I wrote this on May 2, 2012. Enjoy....

I am a member of Toastmaster International club since last June (2011), and I join a club in Johor Jaya. Now, since I am currently working in Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, I transfer my membership (temporarily) to PRATTically Speaking Toastmaster Club, here. (PRATT is the name of the faculty)

 Today, I took the speech evaluator role. I evaluated a speaker; a Professor while I am a girl who is struggling with my PhD. He was delivering an Advanced Project while I am still working on my basic speech projects (7 out of 10 from Competent Communication manual ; this is what I meant by 'A non-CC Toastmaster'). Enough evidences to show that he has more experiences in many aspects and I have enough reasons to feel more worry. Can you feel that? Can you feel that??!! Wuuuaaaa!!!!

At first I thought I will be dropped as an evaluator (here, members sign up to take a role online) because my first speaker (evaluatee) was sick, so she cannot attend the meeting. So I didn't think that I will evaluate the professor. But one hour before the meeting, I contacted the secretary of the club (because I receive an email from her, so it reminded me to ask), she told me that;

"Actually, you are more than qualified to do Zbigniew's evaluation!!  Since we are a new group, we still give feedback to more advanced speakers.  Even though we may not have the experience, we still have valuable information as a listener and can give them positive feedback and even words of improvement." Ah ha...! A very encouraging email. Toastmasters always encourage, motivate and inspire others.

I only manage to find a beautiful sentence before the meeting as my preparation;

"Feedback is a breakfast for a champion" on the Toastmasters International website. Okay, that is beautiful enough for my speech evaluation. At least I have some preparation!

I arrived 5 minutes before the meeting, and my evaluatee still not there. I don't have his manual so... How can I know what I will evaluate...? Okay, take it easy, Ain... I sat and inhale as much oxygen as I can. I managed to have his manual 10 minutes after the meeting was started. I cannot read with full concentration because people were speaking in front. The president, the Toastmaster, the Word Master and the other speakers. Huh.. I started to prepared my table (two sections) on my notepad, one with a smiley, one with a sad face, to symbolize the good things and the need to be improved aspects. While keep reading maybe 30% from his manual, the 1st project of Technical Presentation.

I believe that the General Evaluator can feel how cold my hand was. Huhu..

When I was at the podium, "owh oh.. how can I give feedback for a professor!! an advanced project! Mommy!! Help!!!", I spoke to myself.

"I am so happy because madam General Evaluator pronounced my name perfectly!"

It was my first sentence. Then people laughed. And, yes, I felt better. (One important tips from my mentor, Ajan. Make the audience laugh to feel less nervous)

I read the objectives of the speech to the audience.. Errr.. I believe, I am not sure how to pronounce few words. I think I wasted few seconds there. And I didn't greet. Zzz...

I gave my evaluation according to his speech. Starting from the title, the introduction, the objectives and the details in his speech. My mistake was....

I didn't choose what I will share and what I won't. So I keep talking 6-7 points written on my paper. Hahaha.. so greedy! I talked in chronological way. When suddenly I saw the orange card! From 4, I manage to tell only 2 suggestions. And... I was speaking for 4 minutes 13 seconds. The timer said, "this make you walk on the red carpet" ah ha...!

I was upset because I describe so much on one or two points, until I have no chance to share one interesting suggestion (at least, for me). Practice more, Ain! I believe that I only need to choose less points @ strengths, not all I observed. Don't be so greedy. (For your information, this is my 2nd speech evaluation in my life)

And feedback from others to my evaluation?

1- Over the time limit... yes

2- I spoke fast... I always get this feedback. So some words were not clear.

3- I used present tense when it should be past tense.

4- only 4 uhm.. (time filler). yes! hehehe..

5- I used an interesting closing (hahaha, luckily I found that 40 minutes before the meeting) and I can see the professor smiled widely!!!

6- I was not judgemental and honest.. hehehehe.. *blushing* I used, "I feel... I think..." instead of, "we cannot see.. we feel bad.." or "you cannot.. it was bad.." (actually this is an email I received from the Mr President.. hee....)
7- One important point, I told that my evaluatee looked at his laptop's screen while talking to the audience at one particular time. I suggested that it is better if he talk (and look) to the audience first telling what he is going to do (he wanted to change a setting on the software : a demonstration) before facing the laptop. So, he will not lost the connection (eyes) with the audience. But I said "... so you will not lost one @ all" referring to the audience.

Good try and I am happy!

Love Weakness, Ignore Strength

Love weakness and ignore strength. In other word, some people love to know and highlight more about someone’s weakness than highlighting and appreciating someone’s strength. And it is not only happened in one way. When people give others feedback, the feedback ONLY will be heard and appreciated more on weakness or things need to be improved while the strength or good things included in the feedback will be ignored by replying with only simple ‘thank you’ or silent smile.

I feel something is wrong here. In a regular meeting of Toastmasters, we heard feedbacks during speech evaluations and general evaluations that including language evaluations. How many of you leave your notebook blank and save your ink when it comes to “…the things I like the most about you are…”? But ONLY pick up your pen to write (read as “pay attention, feel like it is important, and want to remember”) when it comes to “… suggestions for improvement…”?

I witnessed several time, when people show me their blank notebooks or papers with dissatisfied faces, “I have no weakness that I need to improve?” when their evaluators ‘failed’ to spot their ‘weakness’. Not only evaluation by others, one day I was voluntarily giving feedback to someone, when I feel like I can offer him more than his speech evaluator gave him. I gave him three (3) things I like the most about his speech. However, after I finished and said ‘all the best for his future speeches’, he replied “aik? You only wanna say good things about my speech? No suggestion ha?”

I actually could leave the room since the meeting already over and go home as early as I can, no need to waste my time sharing my thought with him, right? Huh…!!!

Do you know, we are not paid to give evaluations in Toastmasters? And do you aware we spend a lot of time and attention to give our best in listening, digesting and give feedback to you? And do you know the meaning of word ‘grateful’?

I don’t feel this is wrong and feel hurt when comes to me giving evaluations; because I always have ‘weakness’ to offer in my feedbacks (the formal @ assigned evaluations). But I feel unhappy when I see my friends, Toastmasters family, don’t feel grateful when they received feedback, as I am, INCLUDING their strength highlighted by others.

When people give me feedback, I am not only jotting down the ‘weakness’ but also the strength. For me, it is MY ASSETS and who will appreciate your assets and gifts more than yourselves?

When people highlight my strength or things I did well, I feel motivated and happy. And I always want to really remember and understand it, so (1) I know when and how I can use that strength again in future. And sometimes, the good things they appreciated were done without my intention. So telling me that kind of strength will be very helpful because then (2) I know, I will need to use the strength again. The more important thing for knowing our strength is, I then start thinking, how I could have that strength. Is it by practice? Someone told me to do so? Or from a reading? So then, (3) when I meet someone else in future that needs that same skill, I can offer him/her how I have that skill.

So, I appreciated people when they acknowledge things I did well. Not listening to them and act like I gain nothing, like ‘those’ people. I have no idea, how can I ignore all praises (pujian) given to me. And I have no idea how people can ignore all praises given to them too.

Please, be happy when your ‘weakness’ highlighted to help you stay hunger of improvement. At the same time, please be grateful when your strength and skill appreciated by others to help you stay hunger of giving to others. Toastmasters are humble, willing to serve for others and happy to improve themselves. We have no space for arrogant people.

Wrong English? So, WHAT?

“She said curry chicken? Should be chicken curry, right?”
“What she said? Rusume? It should be pronounce as RE-SU-ME, right? Hahaha…”

Hello…..!!! At least, they were speaking on stage in front of you and delivering a message and values to you .. and you get benefit from what they said, right? What have you done? You only sitting and have no loud sound? And if you were on the stage, would you successfully delivering the message as they did to you and to me? Simpler question, would you dare enough to be on the stage and tell us what you want to say as they were?

I experienced few times, when I sat beside or near people who were sitting together with me, listening to someone speaking on the stage or in front of us and I felt irritated with this one behaviour. Love to highlight the wrong usage of English or correcting the incorrect language usage the speakers did; more irritate when this kind of people laughs or makes annoyed faces.

I don’t believe Toastmasters clubs are the best place to learn or improve English. For me, English is only the medium of speaking, and more importantly, COMMUNICATING. But I agree that while participating more in Toastmasters will HELP you in improving your English. 

There are people with good English, broad vocabulary, perfect grammar and flawless pronunciation; that I look up to. But they are not necessary can be a very good speaker, can communicate very well and can persuade or inspire others by him or her sayings. Better language is a bonus, yes. But non-perfect language is not an obstacle of efficient communication.

I agree with this more, firstly, when I could happily communicate with a group of cleaners in a government hospital I worked for 8 weeks for my industrial training, last 2006. Why? They were from India and I cannot communicate with them in English or Malay. They only knew Tamil. But after few weeks, I felt happier to go to work when I knew a group of people were happy to see me, and communicated with our body and facial expression efficiently. When we became closer, some aunts gave me food too. Who said you need fluent language to communicate? 

Secondly, when I knew in a Toastmasters speech contest that out of 100 marks for a contestant, only 10 marks are for language usage. ONLY 10! Others are for speech contents, speech organizations, values, body language, vocal etc. So, who said the winner of a speech contest should have better language than others?

I am not writing this to tell you, NO NEED TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH or your language, but I am writing this to tell you, “DON’T LAUGH AT OTHERS WHEN THEY USED WRONG ENGLISH!” because language is not more important than our communicating skills. Language is the tool, but to live with human, we need HUMAN SKILLS.

Best Moment = First Time

In one regular meeting of UTM TMC, the table topics master prepared the theme, “The Best Moment”.  Some of the table topic speakers talked about “The Best Moment of My Life is, during the wedding of my first child…”, “The best moment of my life is when I first delivered my baby..”, “…when I first came to UTM to do my first degree…” and few more..

Then the table topic master, Dr. Raja ended the session by , “Can I also share my best moment of my life?” and he shared about his “…when I first reported working in UTM…”.

He then continued, “This is the first time the table topic master also the table topic speaker, hahahaha…!!”

One of us then realize, “eh, all of our best moment in our lives are when we were doing something for the first time!”.

Yes, FIRST TIME always be the most memorable ones, and most probably be the best one, like first love, ehem ehem… 

As the president of UTM TMC for this term, 2013/2014, I also have my first time experience. First time deliver the opening speech as madam president last few weeks. Fuuuhhhh…..!!!! And I believe, that is one of the best moments of my live too.

I am happy to be elected, trusted and supported to be the president, even I never be in executive committee before. Less experience in managing a Toastmasters Club is one of the challenges for me. But I believe that experience and knowledge can be gained in our journeys, and everybody has our own unique journeys. I hope that my journey will be as beautiful as I wish it will be.

I shared in my opening speech I delivered, while wearing a shocking pink scarf and purple and pink blouse, that I watched the White House Down movie few days back. In the movie, we can see how a girl love and admire her president so much and at the same time, how an antagonist character in the movie hate the president so much too. So then, while taking the responsibility, I believe that a leader has two options; to be loved or to be hated. And I choose to be loved. I am afraid to be hated or ignored. I don't want it to be happened.

I believe, we must respect to be respected and love to be loved. Hurm, I feel like I know what I need to do. I must respect and love. Then I will serve as best as I can :)

*Thank you very much for all my close friends and Toastmasters friend that gave opinion about taking the president role. Pros and Cons, I really appreciate it. Thank you for UTM TMC members that trusting me, and supporting and will always supporting me, together we serve for our club. Special thanks to my father with his saying, “reject the offer and you will do nothing, but take that chance and at least you will do something”