We often talk about how to be a good evaluator in Toastmasters, I rarely have I heard the discussion about how to receive feedback. 

 An article in this months leader letter lead me to this thought and I would like to present to you a few points on how to receive feedback. This can of course apply to a speech in toastmasters but honestly this will apply to other areas of life as well. 

1.  I would start by referring to one of my favorite quotes by Maya Angelou

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

 This quote would be sound advice to evaluators but How does this apply to the one being evaluated? 

 Many think of evaluation as criticism which comes from the greek word for judgement which can be perceived with negative connotations. I would encourage us to reframe that and think about it as analysis. Which means to break things down into simple components. With this outlook on the feedback may help to be more open to it. 

2.  Evaluate the evaluator

   I remember one of my earliest times as an evaluator I was evaluating a speech by Patti Koop,  one of the more advanced members of the club.  I remember struggling for something constructive to give her to work on.  I said something that was very general and probably did not add much for her to improve with.  She was very gracious and accepting of what I said and I would guess she just took it in stride that I was a new toastmaster and would get better at evaluations. I think the idea here is we are all here to learn to be better. None of us has “arrived” and can always improve. 

3. Prepare!   How does prepare to receive evaluation?   I would say you need to evaluate your speech yourself. Use the techniques we have been taught like standing oil front of a mirror, using video or audio recordings and evaluate ourselves and our speeches through and evaluators eyes. I have done this and when my evaluator stated things I already had observed myself it just affirmed to me those were area I perhaps needed to work a little more on. 

 This discussion about receiving evaluations could go much deeper than my educational moment. I think the bottom line idea for me is my evaluator is there to encourage me and wishes me success. I know some have had bad experiences with this but myself I think this has been true in experience in Toastmasters.  We are a team and each of us in on the side of the speaker!  

  Which frankly is a beautiful thing!   

https://toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2025/november/make-friends-with-feedback

.