The Feedback Loop

Most adults in the work world can write reasonably well because they received constant feedback throughout school on their writing. Even today, if you write a document with spelling and grammar errors, most word processing programs will underline or mark your errors. It might not be easy to write great literature, but it’s not hard to write a simple letter that can be understood by others.

But most adults in the work world are horrible speakers. Why? Is speaking inherently more difficult than writing? No. The difference is receiving feedback and criticism; with writing most people get it, with speaking, most don’t.

Some people marvel at the way certain politicians can stand in front of a crowd and captivate their audience. How do they do it? For the most part, politicians don’t start out as better speakers than anyone else. It’s just that if you are a politician, you thrust yourself into situations where other people feel free to criticize the style and substance of your speeches. The media, your opponents, your staff, your financial contributors all feel obligated and even entitled to give you constructive criticism on how to become a better public speaker. That’s how someone like John F. Kennedy went from being a horrible speaker to a great speaker over a period of a few short years. If you are a politician, it is too painful to keep your speaking skills stuck in one place; you have to improve just to shut people up sometimes.

The big disadvantage most business executives and other people who aren’t in public office face is that they never get honest, unbiased, constructive criticism on their speaking skills. Therefore it’s extraordinarily difficult to improve.

Of course the best way to get honest criticism is to hire me or one of my trainers here at Media Training Worldwide, but that’s not practical for most people on a regular basis. However, there are other ways of getting honest feedback, if you seek it out. For example, if you are giving a speech on Thursday to a major group of prospects, you could practice your speech in front of five colleagues at lunch on Tuesday. Here’s the trick, don’t simply ask your colleagues afterward what they didn’t like or how you can improve. Most colleagues will just say something like “oh, it was great. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” This is completely worthless advice.

Instead, I would recommend that you pass out a note card or a sheet of paper to your colleagues that says “Suggestions and Criticism on how ‘fill in your name here’ can improve his/her presentation.”

Next, let people know that you don’t want them to put their name on it; you want anonymous feedback. Ask them to slide their feedback under your door, mail it to you, or leave it in an envelope in the mail room with your name on it. The key is creating a mechanism where people can give you feedback where you don’t know who is saying what about you.

If you are speaking to a larger group, you can even get fancier. You could easily set up a free email account, something like [email protected]. At the end of your presentation, let people know you really want feedback and then give them your email address and your password.

For example, if go to www.gmail.com and type in “critiquetj” in the username and “speakbetter” for password, it will then take you to a special email account I have created that sends email from [email protected]. You can either send me an anonymous critique back to [email protected] or send it directly to me at [email protected]. Either way, I will never know who is sending the critique and you can give me honest criticism without fear of me holding anything against you.

This is a simple, easy, and free feedback system that anyone can create in just a couple of minutes.

With this type of anonymous feedback, people will feel free to let you know that they didn’t understand your message, that you seemed scared, that your breath was bad, that your clothes are outdated or that your ideas were confusing. The feedback might be painful, but it will be the key to all of your future speaking improvement and success.