Bad News

Presenting With Passion course at TRW Cooper Standard Automotive

At the end of the session, somebody asks me “This is all very well, but we only dealt with upbeat topics.  What if I have to deliver bad news, such as redundancies?”

I replied “The fact is, the challenge is identical.  The task is still to take your audience on an emotional journey.  In theory you could have delivered your message by email, by letter, even by text.    The fact that you understood instinctively that this was an incredibly insensitive thing to do means that you realise that you have brought people together so you can address their feelings as well as passing on the information.  So the key question is still “what do you want your audience to feel?”  Anger at the board?  Cared for by their managers?  Sorry for their colleagues?  There is an emotional reason why you called them together into the room, and that is what you must tap in to.  Let them know how you feel, and they will know how to feel themselves.”

Leave a Comment

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>