Being asked to give a speech is a great honor. Being asked to give a speech that is going to deliver bad news to part or all of 9janews is not such an honor. However, in order to be a truly good speaker, this is exactly the type of speech that you need to be able to step up and give. The keys are knowing how to organize this type of speech and what not to say…
How To Organize Bad News
When you’ve been asked to give bad news to people who work for a business, how you organize the information that you are going to be delivering is very important. Your audience is going to know why you are there so you are going to want to get to the main point of your speech as quickly as possible.
Kathy Berger has looked into how bad business news can be structured when it is delivered. She’s come up with four pillars of information that always need to be included in this type of presentation:
So now that you know how to organize the bad business news that you are delivering, now we need to make sure that we know what not to do while delivering this information.
Don’t lie. Although this seems like some basic advice, the desire to lie or even just stretch the truth a bit can be a powerful motivator when you are delivering bad news. Don’t do it. Anytime that you try to tone down the bad news by saying something that is untrue it will always come back to bite you.
Don’t be unclear. When what we have to say is difficult or painful to say, we often like to wrap it in a lot of words that we think will soften the blow. Don’t do this. Your audience will have to work that much harder to understand what you are trying to say and they may even end up being confused.
Don’t be insensitive. Bad business news will cause an emotional reaction in your audience. As a speaker you need to realize this and be tuned in to understanding how your audience is reacting to what you are saying. During this speech you are going to have to acknowledge this and show your audience that you understand how they are feeling.
Don’t talk about you. In order to shield yourself from having to think about how this bad business news is going to be affecting your audience, we sometimes tend to make our speech all about us: how we feel about the news, what we are thinking, etc. Don’t do this – your audience really doesn’t care about you, they want to hear what all of this means for them
