Aimee
[closed] Why do listeners sometimes have unfriendly attitudes from the beginning of a presentation?
Hello,
My name is Aimee and I am a business senior with an interest in administration and a major of management. I love to learn more about the professionals working in offices as administrators and managers. Therefore, I have a slight preference for management. My academic classes as well as teachers and family have mentioned that speaking is a great tool to be used to effectively get ideas across and get tasks done. However, it is difficult when listeners for a presentation already have preconceived notions about the topic and underlying attitudes that prevent the speaker from getting a chance to respectfully share ideas. How can someone cope with this and rise above it? Can someone meet with the audience before hand? Has this technique been used by managers before?
Thank you for your input. #business-administration #communications #office-management #communication #presentations
2 answers
Brian Manchester
Brian’s Answer
Hi Aimee,
Have definitely had this happen to me before, particularly with very senior people who have very little time :).
I think the best approach to combat folks who may "attack" your presentation is to know your audience ahead of your presentation and tailor it accordingly. Some techniques that have helped me in the past include: sending the presentation as a pre-read a few days ahead of the meeting and being very clear about what you hope to achieve in the meeting, using the headers on slides as explanations/insights versus just generic titles (an example being something like "This year our revenue has grown by 20%" versus "Financial Review") to focus the audiences' attention where you want it, and limiting the content of slides. A 5 slide presentation that gets to the meat of the problem and the solution quickly is far more effective than a 20+ slide presentation with all of the possible content covered. Sometimes, it is good to have some of that content in your back pocket should questions come up, but putting everything in the slides can at times lose the audience.
Hope this is helpful!
Brian
Mark Behnke
Mark’s Answer
The best way to learn speaking is to do it more and, if possible, take advantage of public speaking classes and organizations.
One that I have recently joined is called Toastmasters. They are a club that meets weekly. It costs about $28 per year. They have many different types of speeches that you can do from entertaining speeches to presentations to delivering bad news to...well just about anything. They have suggestions and tips, feedback and more. I see by your profile is that you are in Leander and I live in Cedar Park. I just joined one in NW Austin and know that there are a lot of TM clubs in the greater Austin/RR area. If you are going to school they might have a chapter there.