Evaluations are Free Advice

Recently I saw a General Evaluator giving a detailed report with some very good advice and some other advice that seemed a bit harsh.

He mentioned to the other evaluators that there is lots of value in making sure that they people they were evaluating were knew that the views they were sharing were their own opinion.
He emphasized the point by saying every person would give different version of critique, that an evaluation should not sound like the person represents the whole group, and that you can't say it is your own opinion often enough.

First let me say that the last part is not completely true. I've heard evaluations where they over-did they amount they emphasized that it was just their own opinion to the point where it seemed like they didn't even believe their own thoughts had any value.

Yet as a rule, it is important to make sure that those you evaluate realize that an evaluations are just suggestions, and just one person's view of things.

What struck me later is that this General Evaluator could really have used their own advice! He went on to comment on the performance of another functionary at the meeting. He had a number of critical things to point out. The points were all delivered in a helpful teacher-type tone, yet the message basically said this functionary did things wrong. And it was presented in a form that came across to me a little like he was representing the whole club against them.
At the end of the meeting, I made sure to give some additional feedback and perspective to the functionary to make sure they knew the did a decent job, and just to take the information as suggestions to do better in the future. It turns out it was only their second time in the role, and they had not been given a lot of details on how to do the role.

It reminded me of the first time in Toastmasters that I got an evaluation that rubbed me the wrong way. It took me some time, outside feedback, and a number of reinterpretations to get good value from the evaluation. That was the moment that I realized that you don't have to take every evaluation to heart. Just remember that the person is giving you their perspective of what they felt, and that there is almost always some value you can take.

Evaluations are free advice.
The value you get starts with what you pay: no cash value.
No matter how strong or harsh the evaluation sounds when you hear it, the views are simply one person's advice!


However, there is value in almost every piece of advice you get in Toastmasters.

Here is the important piece:

1) If it makes you feel bad, or feel like you did something wrong, you need to reject that internalization immediately, and look at it again!

2) When you can look at the information that comes with the critique as one or more things you can use to improve and do better the next time, then you have the value of the advice!

That is worth more than cash!