You prepared, you marketed, you sold a company on trying your wonderful seminar, and now that the end of the program is coming, a moment of truth looms.

Youre about to distribute the all-important course evaluations.

Will you sink or swim? Will that fellow that has been scowling during the past day or two shaft you?

Is that happy-go-lucky smiler in the front row a phony that is dying to put your feet into concrete?

In a few moments, youll know, but until then, you get this hollow feeling in your gut.

After all, you gave this group your bestthey should appreciate that, and reward you, accordingly.

But alas, thats not how evaluations work in the real world, and you may or may not get your due.

You may get a random response. Like a jury that is sequestered after you have left the room, your evaluators might discuss their scores with each other and align themselves with the most radical voice they hear.

If Biff thought you were a little too stuck on yourself, which really means Sallys eyes were glued to you instead of ogling him, then his perceptions may take hold of the group like a lasso.

But there is hope if you intentionally TEACH THE EVALUATION form, and program participants to respond as they should.

Look, youre not going to mesmerize anybody against his will, but you can preview whats listed on the form and at least imply what would be a suitable response.

For example, on one universitys evaluation there is a question pertaining to whether the instructor Followed the catalogue description of the class. This one has haunted me in the past, so the last time around, I decided to take action.

At the beginning of the class, before I announced my agenda, I READ ALOUD the course description and stated: I promise were going to cover every item you just heard.

For emphasis, I repeated: Well touch on every topic in this course description.

When my scores were sent to me, EVERY PARTICIPANT EXCEPT ONE gave me a 9, the highest possible score on that dimension. The dissenter gave me a 7.

A 7?

How he or she arrived at that score Ill never know, but Im sure it was the same person that nearly scored every other dimension at a seven, as well, while others were mostly in the 9s, with a sprinkling of 8s.

Lets discuss this rogue for a moment, because youll find people like this in nearly every session. If theyre polled about their scores, theyll quip that Nobodys perfect! which is, of course, nonsense.

Someone can teach the catalogue content perfectly and should be given a top score when he does.

Anyway, this person might be the same one that said during her self-introduction that she may have chosen the wrong course; that it may not apply to her. Perhaps this means that by DEVIATING from the description I might have earned a better score from her.

You can see how absurd this gets, because, for some, evaluations are referenda on whether they like you, whether they were sent to or volunteered to attend the class, or if they had the flu when they took it.

Anyway, there are some variables that you can impact, and its worth the few minutes to do so, because you want to be invited back for more sessions, dont you?