ch14.ppt

Chapter 14
Strategies for Successful
Speaking and Successful
Listening
EffectiveBusinessCommunication
Herta A Murphy
Herbert W Hildebrandt
Jane P Thomas
7th ed. (SIE) Tata McGraw-Hill, New
Delhi

Chapter Objectives
 To prepare for an effective oral
communication
 To learn strategies to reduce
stage fright and control
nervousness
 To learn to be an active listener

improving oral presentations
 The roots of oral communication goes
back to the Greek and the Roman
civilization.
 Moving message through oral route from
the sender to the receiver is not new.
 Some of the strategies for effective oral
communication are:
 Strategies for Improving Oral Presentation
 Strategies for reducing stage fright
 Strategies for improving listeninig

Strategies for improving oral presentations
 Steps for Preparing Effective Oral
Presentations
 Kinds of Oral Presentations
 Ways of Delivering the Oral Message
 Strategies for an Effective Oral
Delivery
 Strategies for an Effective Nonverbal
Delivery

 7 Steps for Preparing Effective
Oral Presentations are:
 Determine the purpose.
 Analyze the audience and occasion.
 Select the main idea for the message.
 Research the topic.
 Organize the data and write the draft.
 Create visual aids.
 Rehearse the talk.

 Determine the purpose
 In general, a communication is done
for three purposes:
 To Inform or Instruct – the core goal
is to clarify, secure understanding or
explain.
 To Persuade – with a view to get the
idea accepted by the receiver.
 To entertain – with an objective of
completing the formality and speaking
to the occasion

 Analyze the audience and occasion
 As in writing, a knowledge of the audience
is significant for communicating
effectively.
 The communicator has more idea about
the internal audience.
 While communicating to the outside
audience, collect information about size,
age group, interests, goals, occupations,
etc. to help organize of the speech.

 Select the main idea for the
message
 Select the main theme or the core ideas
that you want to present.
 Collect additional information in
support of the core ideas.
 Be ready to alter the initial structure of
presentation.

 Research the topic
 You will need more information to
support your main theme or core
ideas.
 Research more data from relevant
sources and incorporate them in to
your presentation.

 Organize the data and write the
draft
 After collecting reasonable amount
of information, organize the data in
three parts:
 Introduction
 Body
 Conclusion or Summary

 Introduction
 An introduction seeks to get attention, inform
aim or purpose and lay out the direction of
speech.
 Use PAL Approach:
 Porch – an opening remark, throat-clearing
statement, preamble, preface, greeting. One
may start with a quotation, a question, a
reference to occasion, etc.
 Aim – Purpose of the speech.
 Layout – inform the agenda

 Body
 The body is the heart of the talk.
 Present facts, and support with
evidence.
 Organize the body of the talk similar to
developing text for a major paper.
 However, in speaking there is always a
time constraint, limit the talk to two or
three main points.

 Conclusion or Summary
 A summary reminds the audience of
the main ideas covered in the body of
the talk, whereas a conclusion draws
inferences from the data.
 Regardless of the purpose, a speech
must have an ending or concluding
remarks.

 Create visual aids
 Not all the presentations require
visuals.
 Consider the following question to
determine if the visual aid is
needed: Would a visual add to the
understanding of the message?

 Rehearse the talk
 Rehearsal helps the communicator
become more familiar with the material
and provides an opportunity to revise the
message, if needed.
 One should rehearse the speech at least
twice or thrice.
 Always keep in mind the following:
 Always imagine the audience in front of you.

 Rehearse the talk
 Always keep in mind the following (contd.):
 Use transitional phrases and sentences to
show the relatedness between sections.
 Take each of the main points at a time and
present each one of them with the
supporting material.
 Include visuals to be shown.
 Anticipate questions from the audience.
 Stop the speech in the allotted time. Then
revise the speech so that in can be
completed in time.

 Kinds of Oral Presentations
 Oral communication lies between
informative speaking on one end of the
continuum and persuasion on the other
end.
 Short talks may range from 1 to 10
minutes; long presentation may take
somewhere around 10 minutes to 1 hour.
 However, 25 to 30 minutes is ideal time
for an oral presentation.

 Ways of Delivering the Oral Message
 Delivery of oral messages has 4 options:
 Extemporaneous – speaker delivers the
speech using only an outline or cue cards.
Most preferred by both the audience and
the speaker.
 Reading – going through the speech
verbatim.
 Memorization – risk of forgetting.
 Impromptu - speaking without or with little
preparation.

 Strategies for an Effective Oral
Delivery
 Voice is one’s personal signature and
trademark.
 One can give extra life to the delivery
using five variables:
 Pitch
 Rate (Pace)
 Volume
 Vocal Quality
 Pronunciation

 Pitch
 It refers to the highness or lowness of the
voice. It must be varied during oral
presentation.
 Emphasize the importance of words or
sentences by changing the pitch of the voice.
 Lime we use underline, or boldface or italics,
in writing a message, use different tone to
emphasize parts of the speech.

 Rate (Pace)
 A speaker would speak about 80 to 160 words
in a minute.
 In a casual conversation, it ranges from 80 to
250 words per minute.
 Slow rate conveys dullness. A fast speaker
also causes discomfort.
 A key word related to rate is pause. It is like
“oral white space”. Use it effectively.

 Volume
 Volume should be sufficiently raised to
ensure that your voice reaches everyone in
the audience. It refers to the loudness or
softness of your voice.
 Contrast in emphasis involves using a louder
or softer volume on certain words, ideas or
certain part of the talk.

 Vocal Quality
 It is hard to describe one’s voice quality.
However, one can use metaphors to
compare the voice with another known
quantity – such as husky, harsh, mellow,
effeminate, ringing, muffled, and so on…….
 One cannot do anything about the voice
quality as it is largely inherited.

 Pronunciation
 One is expected to be correct in
pronunciation while making business
presentation.
 For many words, the pronunciation varies
from region to region due to variation in
regional accent.
 Some people have tendency to add or omit
sound while speaking several words – such
as “athalete” instead of “athlete”; or “gonna”
instead of “going to”.

 Strategies for an Effective
Nonverbal Delivery
 The speaker’s posture, movement,
gesture, facial expression, and attire
all convey external nonverbal cues.
 Nonverbal symbols of
communication are capable of
enhancing or reducing the
effectiveness of oral communication.

 A communicator needs to take
care of:
 Posture
 Movement
 Gestures
 Facial expression
 Appearance

 Posture
 Delivering a message standing erect,
straight, and unbending suggests
confidence, rapport with the audience.
 Your outward appearance mirrors your
inner mood.
 A speaker draped over podium with
shoulders sagging, gives a feeling of
depression, lack of control.

 Movement
 Movement is necessary to
 Hold attention
 Get rid of nervousness
 Suggest transition
 Increase emphasis
 Moving towards and away from the
audience during the presentation
helps grab their attention.

 Gestures
 In simple terms, movement of hands,
arm, head and shoulders are termed as
gestures.
 The science of body movements is
called kinesics, of which gestures are a
part.
 It includes emblems, illustrators,
regulators, and adapters.

 Gestures
 Emblems – behavior that has a direct verbal
counter part such as the arm wave for hello or
goodbye.
 Illustrators – gestures are part of this group.
 Affect Displays – speakers may use any of
the primary emotional state via facial
expression: anger, surprise, happiness.
 Regulators – using body movements of
audience to find out their response
 Adapters – unintentional movements, such as
scratching nose, twisting a pencil.

 Gestures
 One must keep in mind the following
regarding the use of gestures:
 Vary gestures. Do not repeat the same
action. It is boring to the audience.
 Avoid continuous gestures. Overuse of
gestures can weaken the emphasis.
 Watch timings. The gestures must be times
well with the words.
 Adapt gestures. A small gesture may not be
visible to a large audience.

 Facial expression
 Facial expressions could convey
primary emotional states.
 Facial expression includes eye contact.
 Speakers who bury their heads in
notes or who speak to the screen, lose
a sense of directness with the
audience.
 Eye contact with the listeners convey
respect and goodwill.

 Appearance
 Appearance during different occasions
such as interviews, meetings, sales
conference, social gatherings, conveys
a definite message.
 There are no rigid rules as to what
should be worn where, but one needs
to be very judicious about the choice
of attire according to the situation.

Strategies for reducingstage fright
 Being at ease in front of an audience is
difficult for many people.
 In traditional ranking, speaking before
an audience is rated the most fearful
thing.
 The signs of discomfort are universally
experienced: the increased heart rate,
dry mouth, sweating palms, knocking
knees, flat face, etc.

Strategies for reducingstage fright
 There are some strategies for decreasing
Speaking Fears.
 In true sense, it is mind over matter,
confidence above all, feeling that you
know the subject better than anyone do.
 Refer to the checklist 14.4 of the Text
book to know more tips for reducing the
stage fright.

Strategies for improving listening skills
 Listening is yet another most difficult
task, from an audience’s perspective.
 Listening is as important as speaking,
writing and reading.
 Some of the areas need consideration
are:
 Faults in Listening
 Purposes for Listening
 Results of Good Listening

 Faults in Listening
 Some of the factors responsible for
poor listening are:
 Prejudice against the speaker
 External distractions
 Thinking speed
 Premature evaluation
 Semantic stereotypes
 Delivery

 Prejudice against the speaker
 Listeners are distracted because who
the speaker is conflicts with their
attitudes.
 Listeners cannot concentrate when
the speaker’s position, attitude or
beliefs is entirely contrary to
listeners’ own.

 External distractions
 External distraction may be caused
due to stammering speaker, speaker’s
clothing, excessive gestures.
 Even the physical setting could disturb
the listening process. Noisy fans, poor
lighting, loud background music,
overheated or cold room, etc. are
external distractors.

 Thinking speed
 Speaking is at the rate of 80 to 160
words pr minute, but processing and
thinking goes as high as 400 to 800
words per minute.
 This leaves ample time for a listener
to be distracted.

 Premature evaluation
 Many people have tendency to jump
to conclusions very fast, without
waiting for the speakers to complete
their message.
 Due to more thinking speed, many
of us race ahead to what one feels is
the conclusion. This often may be
quite different form what speaker
intended.

 Semantic stereotypes
 Some words bother some people.
 Internal reactions to words vary
from person to person.
 It is largely a result of feelings,
attitudes, prejudices, and biases one
carries.
 The listener tunes out the speaker if
some words annoy him/her.

 Delivery
 A monotone can put the listeners to
sleep.
 Delivering speech by reading
verbatim may also cause listeners to
lose interest.
 Confused delivery of ideas without
properly tying up with the main
theme of the presentation could also
distract the listeners’ attention.

 Purposes for Listening
 There are at least four reasons why
people would like to listen:
 To Gain New Information and Ideas
 To Question and Test Evidence
 To Be Inspired
 To Improve one’s Own
Communication

 Results of Good Listening
 Good listening gives following
benefits:
 It leads to helpful, positive attitudes –
by understanding the hindrances that
lie in the way of good listening.
 Permits the speaker and listeners
improve communication as each side
becomes receptive to the other.

benefits (contd.):
 Indicates by feedback to the speaker
that listeners are interested; which in
turn motivates speaker to give his/her
best.
 Helps listeners obtain useful
information.

benefits (contd.):
 Creates better understanding of
others and thus helps listeners work
with others.
 Helps the speaker (especially in an
interview) in talking out a problem.

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