Toastmaster logo
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Toastmasters is a mixed blessing.
On the upside, you get stagetime and there’s very little better for improving your public speaking and presenting skills than stagetime. Great. Value for money-wise it’s variable but often pretty good too.
What’s more, it can be a lot of fun.
But what about the downside?
Well, there’s artificial limits and rules on your presentation that are imposed: time for example. No doubt there’s a great discipline to be learned by filling a four minute slot or a three minutes slot or a 45 minutes slot or a.. but in the real world it doesn’t work like that.
A lot of what you learn at Toastmasters doesn’t move into the real world.
Mind you, you get excellent feedback…
…don’t you?
No.
You get the feedback the people in the room feel like you should have. Firstly, few of them are experts. If they were, they’d not be at Toastmasters… Yes, I know there are brilliant presenters at Toastmasters, but you’ve got to admit that most people are adequate at best, just like in the real world. :)
In any case, what they say and what they think aren’t always well matched, are they! Are you really going to tell someone that they should go back to the drawing board? Especially if they’re a friend… or if they’re going to be judging you in ten minutes? Or if they’re nice and trying hard….?
Nope, didn’t think so.
Besides, as any teacher will tell you, giving feedback is a skill that very few people have. You need to be trained in it.
What’s more, some of the feedback is decidedly ‘dodgy’. The vast majority is (I’m sure) perfectly well intentioned but it’s given by amateurs and WIKI trainers. What’s a WIKI trainer? What I Know Is… and what they know is what works for them as presenters, not what would necessarily work for anyone else.
I’ve heard people suggest that taking (chilled!) water while you’re presenting is good for your voice. It isn’t. Ask any actor or other professional. It might be a useful ‘prop’ or a useful way of buying your self time to think if you’re stumped by a question (in which case why not just say so?!) but it’s not good for your voice!
And yet I still recommend my presentation skills training clients to seriously consider Toastmasters – the stagetime is great! Just think carefully about who or what you listen to in the feedback… :)
