By TM Raunak Agarwal

Feedback is considered to be as important as bread and butter for Toastmasters. Whether you are a nervous first timer stepping onto the stage or a seasoned speaker, the value of constructive feedback, speech evaluations and mentoring cannot be overstated.

When I joined back in 2019, I used to believe that's it's so easy to give feedback, just tell them that these things need to improve and done. Easy right? Well, not so easy as I learnt during my journey here at Toastmasters. Feedback is an art form that needs to be mastered properly and both giving feedback and receiving it, is not as easy as it sounds.

However, if this skill is mastered then there is nothing that can stop you from becoming a champion as it rightly said Feedback is the breakfast for champions.

Feedback is a sandwich, however only if it is well prepared

I still remember back in 2019, when I was a new member and genuinely did not know much about how feedback is given or how it helps. My club had organised a speech marathon and I was one of the speakers. I was really confident and happy with my first ever speech (the ice breaker speech), after all I had delivered a speech for the first time in my life. My evaluator came up on stage and told me three points that he thought I did well in and then gave me just two suggestions for improving my speech, he did not criticise me, he gave me feedback for improvement and suddenly I understood the difference between Criticism and Feedback. The evaluator wanted me to be better in my next speech and suggested what could be improved upon according to him.

Over the years I have seen some wonderful evaluations, given multiple evaluations however one thing that has stuck with me is that the members need to feel positive about the evaluation. Don’t sugarcoat and definitely call a spade a spade but don’t go over the top and say that 'this speech was trash', you may have your own opinion however understand what the person giving the speech would feel. Have some empathy while delivering evaluations and do not overdo it at any cost. You are there to give feedback, not to show how much you know or think of yourself but rather Remember the Member you are Evaluating.

We as Toastmasters need to motivate and help the members, afterall Toastmasters don’t judge, we evaluate(except in contests ofcourse). In this I believe something that is beneficial is the CRC Method of Evaluation. Here first you talk about the positives of the speech(2-3 points), then we give a few recommendations(things the speaker can actually work upon) and finally we again give commendations and end on a positive note. This sandwich method actually helps the speaker not only understand what they could improve but also what they are doing well that they should continue doing.

I believe that feedback is helpful only if it is given in the correct manner and taken by the recipient in that manner too. It all depends on how we present it. Not only in toastmasters, in life too we will have situations where this ability to present proper feedback will help provided we are doing it to help others improve and in a correct manner too, after all Toastmasters don’t Judge, they Evaluate.

Mentoring helps you in Self Development

A mentor is very important for anyone to grow and improve and I believe the right mentor does not change you, they just guide you to be the best version of yourself that you can be. They give you the direction you need. They are like the compass that can point you in the direction that you wish to go in.

When I took up the role of a mentor, I used to believe that I am supposed to help the mentees improve, guide them, support them and make them better and while that is indeed a part of it, mentoring is far more than that too.

As a Mentor I faced a few challenges, things that I knew or came to me very easily or I used to think That's obvious right? Well, it wasn't so obvious to everyone because everyone had a different perspective and they thought differently too. The responsibility of motivating them and guiding them fell upon me.

One of my mentees, was a new member who had joined in October of last year and was very shy and under confident. However, I believed that she indeed wanted to succeed and be the best. She was just afraid to step into the spotlight.

As a person who had been through that myself, I could absolutely relate to her and slowly and gradually we worked on it and the way she improved, implementing every single feedback that I could think of, I am proud to say that she emerged as the Division Champion for two of the four Contests organised. This was an achievement even I could not achieve (till now) however her winning these made me proud, it changed the way I think, helping her helped me improve as when we were working on anything, be it voice modulation or just trying to think differently about different table topics, I used to learn and grow as well. Guiding her made me better and I understood that the best way to learn something is to help and guide someone else about it

Whenever I guide or support my mentees, I learn even more about the topics that I help them with. So, it doesn't matter if you are in Toastmasters for less than a year or over 7 years like me, keep on trying and improving yourself and most importantly guiding others to do the same. Not only will you be helping them improve and be better, the immense changes and improvement that you will see while giving them feedback will make your journey more fruitful.