First thoughts on Toastmasters versus Standup Comedy

I went to the first night of Wednesday Night Fever at Lee Harvey’s Backyard Club, courtesy of Hils Jago at Amused Moose where I will be starting a stand up course in a couple of weeks time.

There were 8 acts for the evening, and I stayed for 5 of them before realising that I was going to be left stranded in London for the night if I didn’t make a move for home.

Each of the acts was quite different in terms of style and delivery, although my favourite was a guy called Joe. He delivered a series of witty stories, keeping me on the edge of my seat anticipating what he was going to say next. His delivery was largely free of swearing as well which made it stand out from the other acts which featured swearing quite frequently. I believe swearing does have its place in comedy, but it’s much more skillful to deliver without resorting to that style of language. You certainly don’t see people swearing in Toastmasters speeches, although the audience is of course completely different so that must be taken into account as well.
The most immediate obvious difference was that the structure of the acts was much more fluid than for Toastmasters speeches – the various stories didn’t really seem to connect and often went off at a tangent. The delivery came across as being much more off the cuff than Toastmasters where you can tell that the speeches have been prepared in advance. Although I’m sure some parts of stand up routines have also been prepared, it was intriguing watching the delivery style and how it made it feel like they were making stuff up on the spot.

There was audience interaction yesterday which I have very rarely seen apart from by the most experienced Toastmasters. I think this probably made the stand up acts a bit more engaging as you felt part of it all whereas at Toastmasters the speeches are being delivered to you.

My feeling is that the best Toastmasters speeches are more polished and cleaner all round – there were still a few rough edges with the stand up acts and more hesitations than I had expected to witness.

There seemed to be more build up to certain sections in the stand up acts whereas Toastmasters speeches are straight to the point from the off from my experience.

One thing that was similar was that they both cater for their respective audiences and give them what to hear. Toastmasters speeches are by the very nature more serious in tone and are more business presentations than for entertainment. Perhaps this explains some of the differences noted above.

Of course I have seen many more Toastmasters speeches than stand up sets so I am looking forward to seeing how my opinions change as I see more of each.

Toastmasters Speech Review – C7: Comfort Zones

I did my C7 in the Toastmasters CTM manual last night at Epsom Speakers Club, where I have been speaking since last January.

It was by far the best one that I have done so far, and one of the guests came to me afterwards and said that listening to me had inspired him to get involved in the topics session later on in the evening. He won the competition for best topic so I was really chuffed for him. A pretty impressive start to his Toastmasters career! Far superior to mine anyway.

The speech was all about comfort zones, which is where you stay in an area where you feel comfortable, where there is not much opportunity for you to learn, where everything comes fairly easily. It’s a nice place to be but in order to make positive changes in any area of your life it is necessary to leave this behind and step up to the plate so to speak. Now in general if you are at Toastmasters it is probably because you already believe this so perhaps I was speaking to the converted anyway!

Enough of the talking though, just what is Toastmasters?

For me it’s the opportunity to speak in front of a group of supportive people and be given advice by more experienced members on the areas that you could look to improve upon.

The evening is split into two distinctive parts:

The first half is focused on prepared speeches, and a pre determined group of speakers of varying experience will come up on the stage and speak about a topic they have chosen. Each of these speeches will then be evaluated, where the evaluator is looking to boost the confidence of the speaker by noting good areas of their speech while also covering areas for improvement and preferably giving examples of how these improvements can be made.

There is a break for 15 minutes or so before the second half gets underway – just like football!

The second half is all about off the cuff speaking. The format varies slightly depending on who is running the session but the idea is that you are given a topic to speak about, you get maybe 30 seconds to think about it, and then you come up on the stage and speak for up to 2 minutes. It’s certainly a challenge!

I was 4th on the stage last night which was strange as I had really got used to the idea of being one of the first to speak when it was my turn! What was not so good about the speech was that a) I ran over the time by about 40 seconds or so and b) It didn’t fit strictly to the objectives laid out.

These were both pointed out by my evaluator for the evening, as well as the fact that sometimes I seemed to move around the stage just for the sake of it.

The fact that I had felt so at ease on stage and had managed to make quite a number in the audience laugh without intending to meant that it was a fantastic experience for me. Just before I got on stage I realised that there was a table on the right hand side, and I decided to make use of it in one area of the speech. I was talking about being absolutely terrified at a party I went to in Vancouver a couple of years ago, and wishing the table had been there to save me! I actually hid behind the table while on stage – it went down pretty well.

Overall though my delivery was much more controlled, much slower than normal and was covered with pauses – an area of speaking that I have found particularly difficult in the past.

Finally, after 15 months of practice the stage feels comfortable! Somewhat ironic given the choice of topic, don’t you think?

Giving effective feedback

One of the most interesting things I have discovered since starting at ThoughtWorks earlier this month is the emphasis that is placed on giving feedback.

The first lesson we were taught about giving feedback was that it could be one of two types. Either it should Strengthen Confidence or Increase Effectiveness.

In Layman’s term that means that if you want to make a positive comment about somebody’s contribution then you should make reference to something specific that you believe they have done well so that they can continue doing it. Equally if you believe there is an area that they could improve it, a specific example of this behaviour/fault should be noted along with a suggestion for how they can improve.

As a member of Toastmasters since January I was already used to this concept of feedback and there are certainly parallels in the feedback system encouraged at Toastmasters and that used at ThoughtWorks.

Although Toastmasters do not define types of feedback, there is an expectation that evaluators will apply themselves in a certain manner when carrying out their job.

One of the things which is frowned upon is known as ‘whitewashing’. This is where an evaluator would say that a speaker was ‘brilliant’ or give a summary just using complementary adjectives. Although the speaker may well be flattered, it does not really tell them anything or leave room for improvement. The use of the word ‘brilliant’ or ’superb’ is only the perception of the person using it, and the failure to make use of the word with regards to a specific behaviour or action means that it is rendered meaningless.

Equally when the evaluator believes there is an area that the speaker can improve in they should make a reference to the specific negative behaviour or action so that the speaker can recall their mistake and go about making the improvement. When giving feedback it is very poor practice to attribute your own feelings to the speaker – you are giving them control over something which they do not have control over! For example, if an evaluator were to say: ‘I felt bored listening to your speech, you should make the next speech more interesting’. In this case the evaluator is giving the speaker the power to make them feel bored. It is ridiculous to let someone have that amount of control over you and if we consider that another person listening to the same speech may have felt really engaged, a property of the speech cannot be that it was ‘boring’.

This is very similar to the way that ThoughtWorkers are expected to give feedback, although it is also emphasised that when giving feedback one should speak only for themselves, and not try and speak for a group of people. Doing this would assume that mind reading is possible and as far as I’m aware this feat has yet to be achieved. An example of committing this mistake would be to say something along the lines of: ‘It would be better for us if you could do x’. In this case ‘us’ is not defined and it is unlikely that one person can speak precisely of the feelings of other people.

This concept is very similar to that of Generalisation in the NLP Meta Model, which states the following:

“Generalization is the process by which elements or pieces of a person’s model become detached from their original experience and come to represent the entire category of which the experience is an example.”

This is an area that I am actually working on myself, and I am finding it very difficult to speak only for myself because I’m so used to generalising! Of course there are still times when generalisation is vital, and we would find it very difficult to live our daily lives without generalising on some things. Giving feedback, however, is one area where this ‘technique’ is counter productive.