Presentation Barriers: Audience Attitudes

In the last two posts, I have looked at presentation barriers that are real, physical objects and ones that are in the speaker's mind. To end this series, I want to look at how audience attitudes can also create presentation barriers for the speaker.

The proper preparation for any presentation is analyzing our audience -- their existing knowledge of the topic, how they feel about it and what they need to know to make the information relevant to them. So our job is to try and get inside the minds of the audience.

But what happens when we discover attitudes there we'd rather not deal with? Attitudes that we find too challenging or too intimidating. Or maybe we don't uncover these attitudes in our preparation but rather get blindsided by them when we are face-to-face with our audience. In either case, uncovering less than supportive audience attitudes can throw us off, causing us to lose our confidence and become defensive.

Let's look at the types of audience attitudes that might cause us problems and what we can do to ensure they don't derail our presentation.

APATHY

It's easy to take offense at disinterest from the audience. We likely find our topic fascinating, have put a lot of work into preparing our presentation and feel it's a reflection on us personally when the audience is not engaged. We may compensate for feeling insecure or slighted by exhibiting behavior that exacerbates the audience's apathy: reading our slides; providing detailed explanations in an effort to get them to see the light; bravely pushing on to the end.

Solution: Find out why the audience is apathetic. Perhaps it's because they don't understand how your information will benefit them. Perhaps they don't know why they were asked to attend your presentation. Focus on the WIIFM (What's In It For Them) with lots of examples. Show relevance to their situations. Engage them with stories. Appeal to them more through the emotional connection of pathos versus the rational logos.

HOSTILITY

Another attitude that's very difficult not to take personally. But generally, people are hostile to a speaker or topic because they feel their way of doing things or beliefs are threatened in some way. So the hostility may actually be directed at your subject matter or your position or the organization you represent more than at you as an individual.  Even so, it's hard to separate the facts from the emotions. As a reaction to hostility, a speaker may exhibit the fight or flight response, becoming either very aggressive or very passive.

Solution: Find out why the audience is hostile and what they're hostile to. Address the elephant in the room and let them know that you know they're hostile. Be clear about your position on the topic. If you agree with the audience's concerns, say so. If you don't, explain why that is and what you hope to accomplish with your presentation. Engage them in problem solving an acceptable solution.

DISAGREEMENT

When the audience is in disagreement with your position on a topic, you can feel that it's a challenge to your credibility, particularly if you are a subject matter expert. A common temptation is to get defensive and argumentative, digging in your heels even more firmly about how right you are. When this happens, it's unlikely that you will actually hear anything the 'other side' says. All your energy is going into preparing your rebuttal.

Solution: Rather than shutting down audience members who disagree, engage them. Find out what specifically they don't agree with. You may discover that a lack of or inaccurate information has led them to their conclusion. Build your own case logically, using examples, research and statistics. Choose your words carefully to avoid incendiary language. If only a small portion of the audience disagrees with you, enlist the remainder as your ally by asking them to share how they see the issue.

There's no question that audience attitudes you perceive as negative can cause you anxiety, shake your confidence and derail your presentation. Do your homework and anticipate what the audience's mind set will likely be about your topic; then build in the above techniques to address any attitudes that could become barriers to an effective presentation.

Related Posts

Presentation Barriers: The Speaker's Mindset
Presentation Barriers: Physical

Comments

[Kathy Reiffenstein]

Hi Carmelo,

Thanks for stopping by.

You are absolutely right. In the business setting, so many times people are told to attend certain presentations that they may not be interested in. These, I think, are particularly challenging for the presenter. Perhaps the best advice is to either incorporate lots of interactive exchanges to try and engage those who are disinterested OR to address the apathy head on, asking what you could do to make the topic more relevant to those folks. Even if there isn't much that can be done, you may gain the respect of the disinterested parties simply by being so direct and honest.

Kathy

[Carmelo Fruciano]

Very interesting post, thanks! One thing that comes to my mind is that in certain situations apathy from part of the audience comes from the fact that they have to be there (due to some sort of institutional obligation) but they are not really interested in what you are talking about...