November / December 2009
Published by Geraldine Barkworth every 2 months & emailed to confidential subscriber lists.
Back issues: are available here
What’s New
2010 will see a new look for this ezine. It will feature a Word Of The Bimonth to delight and expand your verbal horizons and will focus on an interpersonal communication Sticky Situation.
You’re invited to send in Words you’d like investigated and Sticky Situations you’d like solved
“A Hostile Audience”
Article 6 of 6 in the 2009 theme of “How To Talk In Difficult Places”.
“With each issue, learn how to stay comfortable within your own skin to make meaningful connections and get your point across, even in the most trying of public places…”
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The Impact
On You
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In this situation, I’ve had clients react with one of the following:
• Die a little inside and carry on valiantly with sad ‘please don’t eat me” eyes.
• Get angry and either leave or beat up the audience, creating more hostility.
• Trust their gut and adapt to the situation. They may break the tension with something spontaneous and genuine, they may verbally acknowledge how the group is feeling or even ask the group for permission to proceed. They may change or cut short the presentation after negotiation with the group.
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The Solution
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This article will focus on three ways to help you handle a hostile audience and to handle yourself. (How to handle Troublemakers, Know It Alls, Bored & Looking For Trouble and Power Players is a complex issue will be covered in the 2010 ezine.)
1. The Perfect Parking Principle
This principle involves using visualisation in advance of your presentation. Many of you may already use this classic example: “As you drive to your destination, visualise yourself finding the perfect park for your car, right out the front. And when you arrive, there it is, miraculously awaiting you.“ Use this principle whenever you are going to speak to a group (a team, a meeting, an audience, a class, a job interview.)
You could rename it, “The Perfect Audience Principle.”
Visualise how you want your audience to receive you and then let it go. Don’t hang on desperately. Desperation is how you also miss out on your “perfect park”, as someone else slips in just ahead of you.
2. Establish Trust and Rapport
It’s just not possible to win all of the people all of the time. Start with just one person in the group. Someone who wants to be there and is willing to listen. They may be leaning forward, smiling or just making eye contact with you. These are the people to whom you give 100% of your attention. Speak directly to them. Notice their reaction to your words.
Do not be distracted by the ones who are not giving you the time of day. Eventually, they will notice the special rapport between you and other members of the group and they’ll want some too.
There just isn’t enough trust and rapport in our day to day communication. Most of us are too busy texting or thinking of something witty to say to stop and witness how another person is feeling.
When you take the time to build trust and rapport, that’s what you‘ll also get in return.
3. Beyond Your Control
I’m not talking about giving up, shoulders drooping, when confronted with a hostile group; I’m talking about recognizing when a situation is simply beyond your control.
Sometimes it is better and smarter to make a strategic retreat or renegotiate, learn from it and survive to play again another day.
The key here is to learn how to not let it affect your self esteem. Unless of course you were paid an outrageous sum of Danger Money because you made an outrageous claim to be able to transform and motivate a group of 17 year old males on ice.
The two most difficult workshops I ever facilitated had 3 things in common:
• A vague organiser who didn’t disclose that the participants hated one another;
• A very late booking with ever changing last minute details;
• And I ignored my intuition to not accept the work in the first place.
Looking back, I learnt lots from these situations – some parts of which were beyond my control (participants hating one another; disorganised and vague organisers) and some of which were within my control (good intuition and ability to set boundaries.)
And let’s not forget of course, what defines a “hostile audience”? Hostility may be in the eyes of the beholder.
Ultimately, you cannot control other people’s reactions, but you can control your own.
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© 2009, Geraldine Barkworth. Reprintable when full credit is given and the whole newsletter is reproduced.
For more information about services including private coaching, corporate training or to make a media enquiry, please contact Geraldine Barkworth directly on +61 (2) 6685 1917 or email geraldine@coolcalmconnect.com.au
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