Once again, we had a surprise theme for our July 3rd meeting. Read on below to find out more…

Our one and only Abhijeet led an Evaluation Workshop for us!

Part 1: The Workshop

He started off by sharing the principle of Radical Candor as well as some personal anecdotes, including one encounter with his boss. What does this have to do with evaluation? Although you are technically not the speaker’s ‘boss’, you also want to Care Personally and Challenge Directly at the same time.

Abhijeet then shared a basic structure that we could use when forming our evaluation.

He also taught us what exactly to evaluate. (Note: you do NOT have to address all the points below each time. This is just a list of ideas to help you get started.)

A few other points I found really interesting (and hope you do too):

• Feedback is an opinion with a WHY
• Don’t use the words ‘improvement’ or ‘criticism’. Rather, say this is what you think will make the speech ‘more effective’. This provides a softer landing and will make it easier for the feedback receiver to accept.
• Vocal variety and body language matter more than the actual speech content!

Part 2: Practice Time

Gail then graciously gave her ‘Those Elusive Time Stealers’ speech again, only this time for five evaluators–Jian, Naina, Audrey, Kirti, and Ramona–to practice what we learned. At the end of each evaluation, Abhijeet gave some pointers to make our evaluation more effective 🙂

That’s all for this meeting! Stay tuned for next week.

— Notes by Audrey