Deck 11: Delivering the Presentation

Question 1

Faking Your Feelings
Every speaker wants to appear confident and enthusiastic. But sometime during the course of your speaking career, you are likely to face an audience when you do not feel self-assured or enthusiastic about your topic. How can you reconcile the ethical demand to be honest with the pragmatic reality that business communicators are sometimes asked to present ideas they do not personally like?
Suppose, for instance, you have been asked to introduce a colleague you dislike and believe is unqualified for his or her job to a group of new employees or customers. How would you handle this challenge? Or imagine your supervisor created a proposal for your department to share certain equipment with another department. You do not favor the proposal because you foresee conflicts in completing work on time. Because you are enthusiastic and well liked in all departments, your supervisor asks you to present the proposal to the other department "with your usual enthusiasm and persuasion." What do you do?
You may choose to use the interviewing skills described in Chapter 6 to ask experienced communicators how they face these challenges. On the basis of their answers and your own thoughts, develop a policy on how accurately your public demeanor should reflect your private misgivings.

Answer 1

Honesty is a mandatory requirement for any kind of job. If audience finds out a speaker misrepresented the fact then everything else speaker says will be suspect. Although being honest does not mean speaker has to confess everything in front of the audience. It is wise to phrase the proposal in a way that cast proposal in the most positive light. As in the present case, it is required to introduce a colleague who is disliked by the speaker and unqualified for his or her job. Speaker or introducer can do it by complimenting the colleague on the positive side of him or her. Every person possess some good traits more or less, the speaker can talk about those good traits of him/her while introducing him or her to the employees although he can add one or two suggestions as well in the last.
In case, it is required to put the proposal to another department to share certain equipment that may turn into conflict in completing work on time. In this case, speaker can first talk about how this certain equipment is necessary for his department and how frequently they use it. It is a better idea to tell how that certain equipment can be used without making others work delay such as by mutually sharing and taking care of each other.