"Effective Peer Feedback: The Speaker's Edge" (Published in NSA Magazine) by Don Thoren, Rosalie Hydock, Patricia A. Gangi. Peer Feedback
These authors are some heavy hitters in professional speaker organizations like the National Speakers Association, Toastmasters, and the American Society for Training and Development. Main Point: These folks suggest that one of the most effective ways to improve your speaking performance is through peer evaluation and feedback. The article includes how to identify peer evaluators, learning how to give meaningful feedback, and learning how to analyze and apply the feedback you receive. This article is relatively short and reinforces much of what we learn in toastmasters. The section on learning how to give meaningful peer feedback outlines three areas to focus your feedback: content, structure, and style. When evaluating the content, you should consider asking "what is the speaker talking about, why should you care as an audience member, and what the audience should do with the information". If you don't hear these key points you need to tell the speaker. To evaluate the structure, consider how well you thought the speaker guided you verbally and visually through the presentation. Was the speech easy to follow? Were the transitions between ideas clear and easy to follow? You might also comment on the opening and closing of the speech. Did it work for you by grabbing your attention or neatly bringing the speech to a close? Finally, authors suggest that you evaluate the speaker's style by sharing what you believe makes the speaker unique and what supports or diminishes their presence. Here is where you can comment on what you believe is the speaker's real strength. Overall, peer evaluations are an opportunity for you to tell the speaker what works for you and why and what doesn't work and how it might be changed. As always, the authors emphasize feedback is not direction and you should consider the 80/20 rule when giving feedback; i.e., no more than 20% of your feedback is correction. Notably, these authors talk about applying the feedback you get as a speaker. I find this is an area where I am weak. While I welcome feedback, I normally do not make it a point to consciously apply the feedback in my next speech. The authors note that peer evaluations are like looking in a mirror. You may disagree with a peer evaluator's comments and it is possible the evaluator did not perceive your speech correctly. However, it is your responsibility as a speaker to make corrections in your content, structure, or style to eliminate those misperceptions the next time you give a speech. In reality, you don't have to do anything with feedback you receive but, if you accept an observation you need to take action and change it in your next speech and see if it improves your performance. Finally, the authors note the value of vicarious learning from evaluations other speakers receive. The authors humorously note that you don't have to jump off a 10-story building to know it is something you don't want to do. You can and should learn from other evaluations. Key Quote: "What a gift it is to find speakers who are able to pinpoint and communicate to you the "necessary few"; the one or two critical changes that will make the most significant, positive difference in your presentation!" |
