Effective Communications in the Public Sector: Objectives
Presenting technical material to higher authorities can be intimidating. Whether presenting to your own management or testifying before legislators or governing boards in a high stakes public setting, the task always presents challenges:
- You are not sure about how to start, what belongs in the middle, and where to end the presentation. Should you begin with conclusions and risk early rejection or should you make a detailed case first and risk losing audience attention?
- You are unsure whether to use audio visual equipment or to simply speak from memory or a few notes. Should you distribute handouts in advance or after the presentation? Are electronic presentations effective or counterproductive? What slide colors and font schemes work best?
- You have the expertise, but some in the audience are not as familiar with the topic. You are unsure about whether your audience is interested in details or just concepts. How can you avoid insulting or boring audiences with excessive background and definition or embarrassing them by using terms and concepts that they don’t understand?
- You are worried about questions and interruptions that may use up the time allotted. What if your time runs out before you get to conclusions and recommendations? What if you are given only five minutes? Can you summarize?
- You are concerned about badgering or hostile questions. What causes hostile questions from managers and elected officials? How should you respond?
This workshop provides tools for government managers to dramatically improve the quality of their presentations:
- Principles for presenting to powerful adults
- Tactics for coping with the current public policy environment that complicate communications
- Recognizing and avoiding “presenter-centered” tendencies that may ruin your presentation
- Useful concepts for anticipating and accommodating listening preferences
- Applying a model for anticipating presentation scenarios and typical listener types: most, techno, single-issue, and bottom-liner
- Things to confirm when planning a presentation — avoiding disaster
- How to match your approach to the setting: presenting inside the agency vs. presenting in public
- Tactics for balancing presentation styles to accommodate audience listening preferences
- How to apply Aristotle’s principles of ethos, logos, and pathos to presentations–just as successful television journalists do
- Effective use of charts and graphics to deliver a clear message
- How to bridge presentation components to source documents
- Using a simple worksheet for outlining a smart, free-standing, two-minute presentation preview consisting of a frame, message, and supporting points
- Protocols and demeanor for handling angry reactions and hostile questioning