Why Data Scientists Should join Toastmasters
By: Mark Nagelberg
Tags: Public Speaking, Data Science, Communication

Photo by Kane Reinholdtsen

Public speaking used to be a big sore spot for me. I was able to survive it, but just barely. I truly hated it to my core and it caused me a great deal of grief.

And don’t get me started on impromptu speaking — whenever something like that would pop up, I would feel pure terror.

A little over two years ago, I finally had enough and decided I needed to do something about it. I joined a toastmasters group my city. After a few months, I started to become much more relaxed. After only one year in the club, I actually started to look forward to giving speeches and facing the challenge of impromptu speaking.

Imagine being the type of person that volunteers to give a presentation at work, address a crowd, or give a toast off the cuff. Imagine looking forward to speaking at a wedding, meeting, or other event. Imagine being totally comfortable in one of those “networking event” situations where you enter a room crowded full of people you don’t know. Before I started Toastmasters, I used to think people that liked this stuff are from another planet. Now, I feel like I’m getting there myself.

Why should a Data Scientist care about speaking skills?

There are many data-science-specific reasons to treat speaking is a top-priority skill.

Communicating results is a central part of the job

Yes, part of being a data scientist is having skills in mathematics, statistics, machine learning, programming, and domain expertise.

However, technical skills are not close to the entire picture. You might be fantastic at data analysis, but if you can’t communicate your results to others, your work is useless. You’ll wind up producing great analysis that never gets implemented because you didn’t properly explain its value to anyone.

Get an edge in the data science job hunt

To get a data scientist job, there will almost always be an interview component where you have to speak and answer questions you haven’t prepared for in advance. Even if your resume and portfolio look great, you’re going to have trouble getting hired if you bomb the interview. A well executed interview can place you ahead of others who may even have a better resume.

Get an edge advancing to higher positions

Getting promoted from your current position will be much easier if you are a confident speaker, and you’ll enjoy the new position more. Advanced positions (e.g. anything with chief, director, or senior in the job title) generally place higher emphasis on communication skills and lower emphasis on specific technical skills. It’s very hard to perform well in this kind of position without being comfortable speaking.

Better networking and connection building

As a data scientist, you’ll likely need to work with multiple teams within and outside your organization. You’ll need to gain their trust and support. You’ll also need to communicate messages across these teams. Better speaking helps you do this.

It makes you a better thinker / learner

The motto of my toastmasters club is “better listening, thinking, and speaking”, because a huge part of speaking is learning how to organize your thoughts. As George Horace Latimer said in his book Letters from a Self Made Man to his Merchant Son:

“There’s a vast difference between having a carload of miscellaneous facts sloshing around loose in your head and getting all mixed up in transit, and carrying the same assortment properly boxed and crated for convenient handling and immediate delivery.”

Preparing a speech forces you to organize your thoughts and understand the principles underlying your ideas. Psychologists refer to this as “structure building” or “rule learning”. The book Make it Stick points out that learners with this habit of extracting principles are more successful than those who take everything they learn at face value.

This is particularly important for data scientists, given the incredibly diverse range of subjects we are required to develop expertise in and the constantly evolving nature of our field. To manage this fire-hose of information, we must have efficient learning habits.

It’s a fundamental skill that benefits you beyond your data science career

Speaking is a great example of a transferable skill that pays off no matter what you do. Since it deeply pervades your personal and professional life, the ROI to developing it is tremendous (other skills in this category include writing and sales).

Consider all the non-professional situations in your life where you speak to others (e.g. your spouse, kids, parents, family, acquaintances, community groups). Improving your speaking will make all of these interactions more fruitful.

Speaking is the 20% that yields 80% of the results (see the 80–20 rule). It’s worth your time.

Why Toastmasters?

Even though you may agree that improving your public speaking skills is a no-brainer investment for a data scientist, you might be wondering: why is Toastmasters the best way to do this?

Here are a few of my reasons:

It trains almost every type of public speaking you’ll encounter . Toastmasters is a carefully designed system developed over years that covers many aspect of public speaking, including formal speeches, impromptu speaking, business meetings, providing feedback to others, making toasts, introducing speakers, presenting awards, making conversation, and more.

. Toastmasters is a carefully designed system developed over years that covers many aspect of public speaking, including formal speeches, impromptu speaking, business meetings, providing feedback to others, making toasts, introducing speakers, presenting awards, making conversation, and more. It helps you crush your fears by giving you a safe place to crash and burn. Public speaking produces so much anxiety because we fear failing in front of others: looking silly, forgetting what you were going to say, being lost for words, speaking too fast, speaking too slow, speaking in monotone, being boring, being nervous; the list goes on. Toastmasters gives you an opportunity to face these fears in a safe environment where failure is OK. When you do this regularly, the fear gets weaker and weaker. It’s hard to believe if you’re extremely scared of public speaking, but eventually it becomes fun.

Public speaking produces so much anxiety because we fear failing in front of others: looking silly, forgetting what you were going to say, being lost for words, speaking too fast, speaking too slow, speaking in monotone, being boring, being nervous; the list goes on. Toastmasters gives you an opportunity to face these fears in a safe environment where failure is OK. When you do this regularly, the fear gets weaker and weaker. It’s hard to believe if you’re extremely scared of public speaking, but eventually it becomes fun. Meet amazing people. Toastmasters are not your average Joe — they tend to be unusually ambitious, smart, and have interesting careers / businesses. They are great people to learn from and have in your network.

Toastmasters are not your average Joe — they tend to be unusually ambitious, smart, and have interesting careers / businesses. They are great people to learn from and have in your network. Make friends for life. As you get older, it becomes harder to make new friends. This is made worse by modern technology that is constantly pushing us to stay at home alone (e.g. Netflix, YouTube). Toastmasters is an antidote to this — inevitably, you get to know your fellow Toastmasters very well and form strong bonds as you attend meetings week after week.

As you get older, it becomes harder to make new friends. This is made worse by modern technology that is constantly pushing us to stay at home alone (e.g. Netflix, YouTube). Toastmasters is an antidote to this — inevitably, you get to know your fellow Toastmasters very well and form strong bonds as you attend meetings week after week. It’s everywhere. Virtually anywhere you go, there will be a Toastmasters group that you can join. If you move to a new place or take an extended holiday, you can be confident that there’s a Toastmasters group that will take you in.

Virtually anywhere you go, there will be a Toastmasters group that you can join. If you move to a new place or take an extended holiday, you can be confident that there’s a Toastmasters group that will take you in. It’s inexpensive. The cost of Toastmasters varies from club to club. Generally speaking, it’s insanely cheap considering the high cost of alternative speaker training and the immense value you get.

How Does it Work?

Each Toastmasters club does things a little differently, but all use the same fundamental building blocks to make you a better speaker:

Roles

At each meeting, there are a list of possible “roles” that you can play. Each of these roles trains a different public speaking skill. For example, the “grammarian” observes everyone’s language and eloquence, “gruntmaster” monitors all the “ums”, “uhs”, “likes”, “you knows” etc. There is a “Table Topics Master” role where you ask random questions of members they have not prepared for in advance (an incredibly valuable training exercise, especially for job interviews). Here is the list of roles in my club.

Prepared speeches

There are tons of opportunities to practice prepared speeches. Toastmasters provides you with manuals listing various speeches to prepare that give you practice in different aspects of public speaking. You do these speeches at your own pace.

You don’t have to do the speeches in the Toastmasters training manuals — you can also practice speeches you have to give for work or special events.

Evaluations

Feedback is crucial for improvement, and it’s unfortunately something you don’t often get. After your presentation at work, people may say “good job” or “thanks”, but that’s as far as it goes.

In Toastmasters, everyone gets detailed feedback about their performance from other members. This feedback can be like gold, opening your eyes to your strengths and weaknesses and allowing you to improve at a much faster rate.

Closing Advice: Start *Today*

I generally try to live without regret, but if there is one thing that I could go back in time to say to my teenage self it would probably be: “Join Toastmasters. Now.”

I’m happy that my public speaking is now an asset rather than a liability, but there’s an element of frustration that I didn’t jump in sooner. Imagine the opportunities it would have opened up. Think of the experiences I could have had. Think of all the nervousness and emotional discomfort I could have avoided over all those years.

So you owe it to yourself to at least try. Search Google for a nearby Toastmasters group and tell them you would like to attend as a guest (they will be happy to hear from you).

If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll be kicking yourself for not starting earlier.