Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (11 page)

In practice

Remember that to counter any argument you can challenge the facts, challenge the conclusions, or find points that outweigh the conclusions. You’ve now learned the pitfalls and tricks of the trade, so work through each in a practice scenario so that you learn to recognize it when it is used against you.

Chapter 7. Golden Rule 7: Develop the skills for arguing in public

Many arguments take place in the course of a conversation, but sometimes there is a more formal structure to them. For example, you are arguing in favor of a proposal at a meeting. Or you are addressing a group of people. If that is the situation, here are some top tips.

How to speak well in public

•
Be prepared.
We have covered this in Golden Rule 1. In conversation you can get away with being a bit muddled, but if you’re making a presentation have all the facts at your fingertips.

•
Practice.
Unless you are very experienced at public speaking, practice what you’re going to say. It is amazing how an argument or joke works well on paper, but falls flat when spoken.

•
Talk slowly.
Probably the most common mistake in public presentations is that people talk too quickly. You might feel you’re talking too slowly, but it’s very unlikely that you are. Can you remember an occasion when you thought someone was speaking in public too slowly? I doubt it. But I bet you can remember an occasion when someone was talking too fast.

•
Don’t read.
We’ve all been to presentations where a person simply reads a speech. It never works. It sounds stilted and awkward. Prepare bullet point notes. Have a list of bullet points to remind you of the structure of the talk. That said, it’s always a good idea to have some notes handy so that if something goes wrong you have something to help.

Avoid a speech with a beginning, a middle and an end.

•
Smile at people.
Especially if you don’t know your audience, try to arrive early to get to know some. It’s really encouraging to
see a familiar face in the crowd. Try to look at different sections of the audience as you’re talking. Don’t just look down or appear to be talking to one person. If you can move around a little, do.

•
Be brief and clear.
Remember Golden Rule 3. I’ve never been to a talk that was too short or too clear. I’ve sat through plenty that were too long and unclear. Remember the main thing is not to be funny or articulate or brilliant, but to convey the points you want to get across in a clear way. Make that your primary goal.

“Before I speak I have something important to say.”

Groucho Marx

•
Moderate the tone of your voice.
Use higher and lower pitches. Vary the pace. Use pauses. Speaking in a monotone can be disastrous.

Getting it wrong

A judge once said: “Beyond doubt the dullest witness I’ve ever had in court ... he speaks in a monotonic voice ... and uses language so drab and convoluted that even the court reporter cannot stay conscious ... I’ve had it.”

•
Let the audience get used to you.
If you’re going to be speaking for a while it’s good to give the audience a little time to get used to you. Start with a story about your journey to the venue or something in the media, just so that people settle into your style. Don’t feel it has to be a joke, a light-hearted anecdote is fine.

•
Quotes.
If you want to use quotes in a speech keep them short. Any quote of more than thirty words is likely to be a turn-off.

•
Use handouts.
These are especially useful if there is detailed information that the listeners need but that would be boring to go through orally, as in supporting statistics. They can also be useful to highlight your key points. It might be best to
give these out at the end of your talk so they are a memory-aid, rather than a distraction.

•
Using PowerPoint.
If you use PowerPoint keep the presentations clear and focused. Beware of the danger that people are so dazzled by your technology that they don’t listen to you. I find that the use of a prop works far more effectively than a computer image. I use a water pistol in my criminal law lectures. Drenching the student gets across the finer points of different criminal offenses better than 40 PowerPoint slides.

•
Warning signs.
Watch out for warning signs that the talk is not going well. Are people fidgeting? Doodling excessively? Is there a “buzz” in the audience? Are people checking their text messages? If so, don’t panic, but do something! Do something unexpected. Have a story up your sleeve to tell, if necessary. Stop talking for a bit, that normally grabs people’s attention! Stop and ask if there are any questions at this stage.

•
End with a clear, memorable summary of your argument.

•
Questions.
If appropriate, ask for questions at the end. If you are asked a difficult question you can always reply: “That’s an excellent question. I can’t give a detailed answer now, but I think we need to talk about that over coffee afterwards.”

Presenting in meetings

Here are a few further tips if you’re going to make a short presentation at a meeting:

• If you know others who will be attending, talk to them beforehand. Try to get like-minded people on board. Check they are happy with the main points you will make.

• Encourage your “supporters” to speak supportively as soon as possible after your presentation. Most people don’t like to speak against a proposal if it’s clear it has support, so this will pre-empt your detractors.

• As it’s a short presentation, use a very clear structure. Say up front what you’re arguing for, give three substantiated reasons (premises), say once again what it is you’re arguing for (conclusion) and sit down.

Summary

Make it your priority to be clear and to be brief. Unless you are training to be a preacher or stand-up comedian you don’t need to make people laugh or cry. You want to get your points across in a clear and convincing way. If you have a chance for a laugh on the way, all well and good.

In practice

The only way to develop skills in public speaking is to practice. You will make mistakes, but those will be great opportunities. Nearly all speakers will feel at the end of their presentations that parts went really well, and parts did not. So don’t be put off if it’s not perfect. Ask friends afterwards if they have any advice. Then practice some more.

Chapter 8. Golden Rule 8: Be able to argue in writing

Most arguments nowadays are done in conversation and discussion. However, with email and blogs, and in business and education, the formal written argument still has a role to play. Here are some key rules:

•
Write clearly.
Remember it’s more important to be clear than to sound clever. You don’t need to use long complicated words just because you’re writing.

Don’t be a sesquipedalian!

Yes, you guessed right. A sesquipedalian is a person who enjoys long words.

•
Use correct spelling and grammar.
But it’s no longer a cardinal sin to start a sentence with “but” or to use a proposition to end a sentence with. You’re not writing a letter to your English teacher. Put clarity above grammar if necessary. Churchill famously replied to a tortuous, but grammatically correct letter, thus:

“That is the kind of language up with which I will not put.”

•
Think carefully about your opening words.
Readers will often decide whether to read on carefully or just skim a report based on the opening lines. You want something that will grab the attention and persuade the reader it’s important to read what you have written. I once opened a book review with:

Are you a hirsute medical lawyer, with low blood pressure and writer’s block? Then this is the book for you. You won’t have to read too many pages before your blood will be boiling, you’ll be pulling out your hair, and grabbing your keyboard to type a furious riposte.

I hope that grabbed some people’s attention and made them want to read more.

•
Keep it brief.
Your reader is more likely to read a one-page summary than a fifty-page document. Remember the Ten Commandments are only 156 words. A lot can be conveyed briefly.

•
Use bullet points and paragraphs to separate out your points.

•
Use the active tense.
“I would have thought it best to proceed carefully,” would be better expressed, “I think we should proceed carefully” or even better, “We should proceed carefully.”

•
Read all the way through the argument after writing it.
Imagine you’re the other person reading it. I remember meeting with a student of mine who was applying for a course at another university. He had sent me a copy of his application letter to look through. In the letter he explained that he was applying for the course as a safety net in case he did not get a job he was applying for. I asked him to imagine he was the professor running the course. How would he feel about receiving such a letter? I had to commend the student’s honesty, but he wasn’t thinking about how it would be read by the person he was writing to. Don’t make that mistake.

The dangers of email

Email is an excellent way of communicating with people. It’s quick and convenient. It can, however, be dangerous, too. Please be careful when using email or blogs to argue.

How not to do it

The media love to report stories of “email gone wild.” One notorious case involved two secretaries in a law firm. KN sent MB an email alleging that MB had stolen KN’s sandwich from the fridge (“comprising of ham, some cheese slices and two slices of bread”). She demanded compensation from MB. It was all KN had for her lunch. MB emailed back that KN must have left her sandwich somewhere else. KN emailed back that MB was a dumb blonde. MB replied that KN could not keep a boyfriend. The exchange degenerated. Within hours it was being passed around the office and soon the partners of the firm. The secretaries both lost their jobs.

Nuance

One of the difficulties of email is that by its nature it is unspoken. This means that nuances that can be communicated orally are lost when written down. Imagine a colleague makes a suggestion and you reply:

“What an interesting idea. Let’s think about that in the New Year.”

You may have intended a really positive, encouraging reply. But the colleague could read that as if said with a sarcastic tone of voice, where what’s really meant is that the idea is crazy and we shouldn’t think about it again. When talking face to face you can normally work out if someone is being sarcastic or not by their tone of voice and their body language. All that nuance is lost by email.

The accent placed on a word can change everything. Contrast:

“You want to go with that proposal?”

with

“You want to go with
that
proposal?”

Emphasizing
that
indicates that the speaker is astonished that the other person is enthusiastic about the proposal, but without the emphasis it appears as a straightforward question. Similarly, a remark intended as a joke can be read completely differently by someone else.

So when arguing by email, read carefully what you have written and imagine trying to read it in as negative a way as possible. Reword if necessary to ensure the message is positive. If you are at all in doubt, why not include a message at the end like: “I realize you might be reading this message and thinking I’m really annoyed with you. I’m not at all. We just have to get these things sorted out.”

Speed

I’m sure we’ve all done it. Sent an angry email and then moments later regretted what we’ve done. Or looked back at an email we sent the previous day and been horrified at how rude we were! Here are some top hints for avoiding that:

• If you’re writing an angry email send it to yourself first. Read it again with fresh eyes. How would you feel if you received an email like that?

• If you’re not sure whether an email is too aggressive, it almost certainly is! As a general rule, you will be coming across much more strongly than you assume.

• Remember there’s a real person at the other end of your email—would you be happy to say this to them face to face?

• Why not send a draft of the email to a friend for any comments?

• Sleep on it!

Blogs

Blog forums have become a popular arena for arguing. Rightly so. They enable people who are interested in particular issues to get together and exchange views. When they work well they can prove a useful source of information and a ready way of finding out what others think. You can even see them as a way of enabling a large number of people to learn about your views.

But be careful! Remember that unlike conversations what you type is there for all to see, maybe forever. The inaccurate statistic, the cruel response, the foolish point will be there for all to see and refer back to again and again! Most blogs enable you to post anonymously; this may be sensible and mean you can be protected if you say something you come to regret.