How do you tell people that "YOU SUCK" with ease and confidence

Warning: This post may contain some ungrammatical expressions and colloquialisms e.g. "You suck" and reader discretion is advised. Please do not read this if you are easily offended.

A toastmaster is called upon to do project evaluations. A project is a speech and project evaluations are speech evaluations where the evaluator is given two to three minutes and thirty seconds to comment on how well (or poorly!) the project speaker has performed in relation to his project objectives in a supportive and constructive manner.

What I learnt from doing project evaluations
Many project evaluators also take the opportunity to comment on other aspects of public speaking such as vocal variety, appearance, body gestures and so on shown by the speaker. After doing evaluations for a few years, I realised that the single most important thing that you have to learn, known and practice as a project evaluator is...

How do you tell people that "YOU SUCK" with ease and confidence?

All of us have egos. Some of you have big egos, some have small egos. Some have tough egos others have fragile ones. How do you give constructive feedback without making the other person want to quit toastmasters altogether and yet tell the truth with love? That is truly challenging and it is still something I struggle with when I encounter abysmal speakers. Some speakers know they suck and are receptive to comments put to them gently. Others totally suck and they do not know they suck. Those are the scary ones! :-)

Suggestions on sharing evaluations without breaking egos
Let me share how I TRY to make my evaluations less hurting to those with fragile egos:

1. Butter the speaker up
- Tell them they dress well, have good eye contact, chose relevant or useful topic etc. Focus on some positive and be genuine about it. :-)

2. Address the areas where they failed to meet project objectives
- Speech evaluation is for them to improve on areas where they can do better to MEET project objectives. A prepared speech done in a normal toastmasters meeting allows the toastmaster to learn and apply the speaking making skills given in the manual. It is not to win contests.

3. Give examples on what did not work, and give examples on what may work
- This is critical because there is no point telling people they suck without specifically referring to that one or two parts of their speech where it happened. Do not just point out problems, value-add by giving possible solutions.

4. Empathise with the speaker
- I try to put myself in the speaker's shoes and share how I also found a particular project challenging because of the reasons I mentioned.

You will find that the two to three minutes and thirty seconds do not give you a lot of time to cover all those areas. Just pick one or two that may work and improvise. With practiceyou will find that your skills will improve and next time you can tell people that you know how to tell others "They suck!" with ease and confidence.