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How to prepare and...

How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

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Peer review
Lucia Hartigan , registrar 1 ,
Fionnuala Mone , fellow in maternal fetal medicine 1 ,
Mary Higgins , consultant obstetrician 2
1 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, Ireland
2 National Maternity Hospital, Dublin; Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin
luciahartigan{at}hotmail.com

The success of an oral presentation lies in the speaker’s ability to transmit information to the audience. Lucia Hartigan and colleagues describe what they have learnt about delivering an effective scientific oral presentation from their own experiences, and their mistakes

The objective of an oral presentation is to portray large amounts of often complex information in a clear, bite sized fashion. Although some of the success lies in the content, the rest lies in the speaker’s skills in transmitting the information to the audience. 1

Preparation

It is important to be as well prepared as possible. Look at the venue in person, and find out the time allowed for your presentation and for questions, and the size of the audience and their backgrounds, which will allow the presentation to be pitched at the appropriate level.

See what the ambience and temperature are like and check that the format of your presentation is compatible with the available computer. This is particularly important when embedding videos. Before you begin, look at the video on stand-by and make sure the lights are dimmed and the speakers are functioning.

For visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Mac Keynote programmes are usual, although Prezi is increasing in popularity. Save the presentation on a USB stick, with email or cloud storage backup to avoid last minute disasters.

When preparing the presentation, start with an opening slide containing the title of the study, your name, and the date. Begin by addressing and thanking the audience and the organisation that has invited you to speak. Typically, the format includes background, study aims, methodology, results, strengths and weaknesses of the study, and conclusions.

If the study takes a lecturing format, consider including “any questions?” on a slide before you conclude, which will allow the audience to remember the take home messages. Ideally, the audience should remember three of the main points from the presentation. 2

Have a maximum of four short points per slide. If you can display something as a diagram, video, or a graph, use this instead of text and talk around it.

Animation is available in both Microsoft PowerPoint and the Apple Mac Keynote programme, and its use in presentations has been demonstrated to assist in the retention and recall of facts. 3 Do not overuse it, though, as it could make you appear unprofessional. If you show a video or diagram don’t just sit back—use a laser pointer to explain what is happening.

Rehearse your presentation in front of at least one person. Request feedback and amend accordingly. If possible, practise in the venue itself so things will not be unfamiliar on the day. If you appear comfortable, the audience will feel comfortable. Ask colleagues and seniors what questions they would ask and prepare responses to these questions.

It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don’t have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.

Try to present slides at the rate of around one slide a minute. If you talk too much, you will lose your audience’s attention. The slides or videos should be an adjunct to your presentation, so do not hide behind them, and be proud of the work you are presenting. You should avoid reading the wording on the slides, but instead talk around the content on them.

Maintain eye contact with the audience and remember to smile and pause after each comment, giving your nerves time to settle. Speak slowly and concisely, highlighting key points.

Do not assume that the audience is completely familiar with the topic you are passionate about, but don’t patronise them either. Use every presentation as an opportunity to teach, even your seniors. The information you are presenting may be new to them, but it is always important to know your audience’s background. You can then ensure you do not patronise world experts.

To maintain the audience’s attention, vary the tone and inflection of your voice. If appropriate, use humour, though you should run any comments or jokes past others beforehand and make sure they are culturally appropriate. Check every now and again that the audience is following and offer them the opportunity to ask questions.

Finishing up is the most important part, as this is when you send your take home message with the audience. Slow down, even though time is important at this stage. Conclude with the three key points from the study and leave the slide up for a further few seconds. Do not ramble on. Give the audience a chance to digest the presentation. Conclude by acknowledging those who assisted you in the study, and thank the audience and organisation. If you are presenting in North America, it is usual practice to conclude with an image of the team. If you wish to show references, insert a text box on the appropriate slide with the primary author, year, and paper, although this is not always required.

Answering questions can often feel like the most daunting part, but don’t look upon this as negative. Assume that the audience has listened and is interested in your research. Listen carefully, and if you are unsure about what someone is saying, ask for the question to be rephrased. Thank the audience member for asking the question and keep responses brief and concise. If you are unsure of the answer you can say that the questioner has raised an interesting point that you will have to investigate further. Have someone in the audience who will write down the questions for you, and remember that this is effectively free peer review.

Be proud of your achievements and try to do justice to the work that you and the rest of your group have done. You deserve to be up on that stage, so show off what you have achieved.

Competing interests: We have read and understood the BMJ Group policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: None.

↵ Rovira A, Auger C, Naidich TP. How to prepare an oral presentation and a conference. Radiologica 2013 ; 55 (suppl 1): 2 -7S. OpenUrl
↵ Bourne PE. Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations. PLos Comput Biol 2007 ; 3 : e77 . OpenUrl PubMed
↵ Naqvi SH, Mobasher F, Afzal MA, Umair M, Kohli AN, Bukhari MH. Effectiveness of teaching methods in a medical institute: perceptions of medical students to teaching aids. J Pak Med Assoc 2013 ; 63 : 859 -64. OpenUrl

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

Carmine Gallo

oral presentation in the workplace purposive communication

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman (St. Martin’s Press).

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Oral Presentation at the Workplace

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Oral presentations are commonplace in the business world. Individuals who work in small companies may be especially busy giving presentations as sharing information is vital in a small company. There are fewer employees for each department in a small company, which necessitates the frequent sharing of information. Whatever the case, oral presentations at the workplace must achieve a specific goal, include visual aids and be delivered to the right audience.

Significance

An oral presentation in the workplace is an employee's chance to show off the work she has been doing, and prove her value to the company. Whether an employee is presenting to a department or company-wide, it is important to gear the presentation toward the audience. For example, engineers that are presenting to marketing and financial managers will need to share information that is relevant to product features and the cost of production, respectively. In addition, the engineer may need to explain more technical terms in his presentation.

The employee or manager should first decide how to present the information. A manager may be able to use slides or transparencies for a less formal presentation. However, presentation software that includes Powerpoint and Keynote will usually make a greater impact. Limit the number of slides, including those on a laptop, to eight or 10. The average presentation should last about 10 minutes, allowing five minutes for questions and answers. Slides should be easy to read and have plenty of white space. Adding color and pictures to slides can also enhance an oral presentation.

Identification

A presentation should have an opening, body and closing. The manager should open with a comment or question that gets the audience's attention, according to the article "Making Business Presentations Work" at businessknowhow.com. The opening should comprise about 10 percent to 20 percent of the presentation, including showing the first slide. Managers should get to the point in the body of their presentation, allocating about 65 percent to 75 percent of their time to it. Finally, the manager should rehash the key points, then close with a statement that encapsulates the main goal of the presentation. Including questions, the closing should be 10 percent to 20 percent of the overall presentation.

Everyone gets nervous when giving presentations. The manager or employee should relax and take a deep breath before commencing their presentation. It is also important to maintain good posture, speak clearly and not to fast, focus on the message, and maintain eye contact with the audience. Use a pointer to stress certain points on the screen if you are using an overhead projector. However, it is important to turn back toward the audience when talking.

Considerations

Individuals should rehearse before their presentation. Practicing will better help a person memorize what they will say. While practicing, the manager should use a stopwatch to get their exact timing down. The stopwatch will also help the manager gauge the right tempo for his presentation. In addition, it always helps to anticipate the types of questions people will ask. The manager should be an expert on the material.

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16 Oral Presentations

Chapter attribution.

David McMurrey and Cassandra Race

Oral Presentations

A common assignment in technical writing courses—not to mention in the workplace—is to prepare and deliver an oral presentation, a task most of us would be happy to avoid. However, while employers look for coursework and experience in preparing written documents, they also look for experience in oral presentations as well. Look back at the first chapter. Remember how important interpersonal communication skills are in the workplace.

The following was written for a standard face-to-face classroom setting. If you are taking an online technical writing course, oral reports can be sent in as “scripts,” or audio versions can be transmitted live or recorded. In any case, students may evaluate each other’s oral reports by filling out a form like the one provided at the end of this chapter or responding through the discussion board.

If you can believe the research, most people would rather have root canal surgery without novocaine than stand up in front of a group and speak. It truly is one of the great stressors. But with some help from the resources that follow, you can be a champion presenter.

For additional information on oral presentations and public speaking in general, see Effective Presentations . This is part of an online tutorial series provided by Kansas University Medical Center. This section has many resources that will be helpful to you.

Topic and Situation for the Oral Presentation

For the oral report in a technical writing course, imagine that you are formally handing over your final written report to the people with whom you set up the hypothetical contract or agreement. For example, imagine that you had contracted with a software company to write its user guide. Once you had completed it, you’d have a meeting with chief officers to formally deliver the guide. You’d spend some time orienting them to the guide, showing them how it is organized and written, and discussing some of its highlights. Your goal is to get them acquainted with the guide and to prompt them for any concerns or questions. (Your class will gladly pretend to be whoever you tell them to be during your talk.)

As you can see, you shouldn’t have to do any research to prepare for this assignment—just plan the details of your talk and get at least one visual ready. If you have a report topic that you’d prefer not to present orally, discuss other possibilities with your instructor. Here are some brainstorming possibilities in case you want to present something else:

Informative purpose: An oral report can be primarily informative. For example, as a member of a committee involved in a project to relocate the plant, your job might be to give an oral report on the condition of the building and grounds at one of the sites proposed for purchase. Or, you might be required to go before the city council and report on the success of the new city-sponsored recycling project.
Instructional purpose: An oral report can be instructional. Your task might be to train new employees to use certain equipment or to perform certain routine tasks.
Persuasive purpose: An oral report can be persuasive. You might want to convince members of local civic organizations to support a city-wide recycling program. You might appear before the city council to persuade its members to reserve certain city-owned lands for park areas, softball and baseball parks, or community gardens.
Topics: You can start by thinking of a technical subject, for example, solar panels, microprocessors, drip irrigation, or laser surgery. For your oral report, think of a subject you’d be interested in talking about, but find a reason why an audience would want to hear your oral report.
Place or situation: You can find topics for oral reports or make more detailed plans for them by thinking about the place or the situation in which your oral report might naturally be given: at a neighborhood association? at the parent–teachers’ association meeting? at a church meeting? at the gardening club? at a city council meeting? at a meeting of the board of directors or high-level executives of a company? Thinking about an oral report this way makes you focus on the audience, their reasons for listening to you, and their interests and background. As in all technical writing situations, identifying and understanding your audience is of the utmost importance.

Content and Requirements for the Oral Presentation

The focus for your oral presentation is clear, understandable presentation; well-organized, well-planned, well-timed discussion. You don’t need to be Mr. or Ms. Slick-Operator—just present the essentials of what you have to say in a calm, organized, well-planned manner.

When you give your oral presentation, we’ll all be listening for the same things. Use the following as a requirements list, as a way of focusing your preparations:

Situation : Plan to explain to the class what the situation of your oral report is, who you are, and who they should imagine they are. Make sure that there is a clean break between this brief explanation and the beginning of your actual oral report.
Timing : Make sure your oral report lasts no longer than the time allotted. Your instructor will work out some signals to indicate when the mark is approaching, has arrived, or has passed.
Indicate the purpose of your oral report
give an overview of its contents
find some way to interest the audience
Visuals : Use at least one visual—preferably slides using presentation software (such as Powerpoint) or transparencies for the overhead projector. Flip charts and objects for display are okay, but avoid scribbling stuff on the chalkboard or whiteboard or relying strictly on handouts. Make sure you discuss key elements of your visuals. Don’t just throw them up there and ignore them. Point out things about them; explain them to the audience.
Explanation : Plan to explain any technical aspect of your topic clearly and understandably. Don’t race through complex, technical stuff—slow down and explain it carefully so that we understand it.
Transitions : Use “verbal headings”—by now, you’ve gotten used to using headings in your written work. There is a corollary in oral reports. With these, you give your audience a very clear signal you are moving from one topic or part of your talk to the next Your presentation visual can signal your headings.
Planning : Plan your report in advance and practice it so that it is organized. Make sure that listeners know what you are talking about and why, which part of the talk you are in, and what’s coming next. Overviews and verbal headings greatly contribute to this sense of organization.
summarize (go back over high points of what you’ve discussed)
conclude (state some logical conclusion based on what you have presented)
provide some last thought (end with some final interesting point but general enough not to require elaboration)
or some combination of these three
Questions : And certainly, you’ll want to prompt the audience for questions and concerns.
Timing (again) : As mentioned above, be sure your oral report is carefully timed. Some ideas on how to work within an allotted time frame are presented in the next section.

Preparing for the Oral Presentation

Pick the method of preparing for the talk that best suits your comfort level with public speaking and with your topic. However, plan to do ample preparation and rehearsal—some people assume that they can just jump up there and ad-lib for so many minutes and be relaxed and informal. It doesn’t often work that way—drawing a mental blank is the more common experience. A well-delivered presentation is the result of a lot of work and a lot of practice.

Here are the obvious possibilities for preparation and delivery:

Write a script, practice it; keep it around for quick-reference during your talk.
Set up an outline of your talk; practice with it, bring it for reference.
Set up cue cards, practice with them, and use them during your talk.
Write a script and read from it.

Of course, the extemporaneous or impromptu methods are also out there for the brave and the adventurous. However, please bear in mind that up to 25 people will be listening to you—you owe them a good presentation, one that is clear, understandable, well-planned, organized, and on target with your purpose and audience.

It doesn’t matter which method you use to prepare for the talk, but you want to make sure that you know your material. The head-down style of reading your report directly from a script has problems. There is little or no eye contact or interaction with the audience. The delivery tends toward a dull, boring monotone that either puts listeners off or is hard to understand. And, most of us cannot stand to have reports read to us!

For many reasons, most people get nervous when they have to give oral presentations. Being well prepared is your best defense against the nerves. Try to remember that your classmates and instructor are a very forgiving, supportive group. You don’t have to be a slick entertainer—just be clear, organized, and understandable. The nerves will wear off someday, the more oral presenting you do. In the meantime, breathe deeply and enjoy.

The following is an example of an introduction to an oral presentation. Use it as a guide for planning your own.

Oral Presentation: Enhancement of the Recycling Program

Valerie and I represent the Austin Coalition for Recycling, a group that was founded in the late 1960s, partly in response to rising utility bills and partly out of a concern for the environment and its resources. High utility bills not only hurt each of us in our pocketbooks but also hurt the quality of life of our city as a whole.

We are all particularly proud of what a fine city we live in and what wonderful citizen involvement there is herein a whole range of civic activities. These things make our city special and ought to be the force that enables us to make a recycling program an integral part of the city’s waste management program. Backed by the City, a new powerful recycling program will contribute enormously to keeping Austin the wonderful place it is.

Valerie and I want to talk to you about how recycling works currently, how it will work once integrated with the city’s waste management program, how this integration will benefit our city, and what you can do to support this plan.

Delivering an Oral Presentation

When you give an oral report, focus on common problem areas such as these:

Timing —Make sure you keep within the time limit. Finishing more than a minute under the time limit is also a problem. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until you get the timing just right.
Volume —Obviously, you must be sure to speak loud enough so that all of your audience can hear you. You might find some way to practice speaking a little louder in the days before the oral presentation.
Pacing, speed —Sometimes, oral presentators who are nervous talk too fast. All that adrenaline causes them to speed through their talk, making it hard for the audience to follow. In general, it helps listeners understand you better if you speak a bit more slowly and deliberately than you do in normal conversation. Slow down, take it easy, be clear…and breathe.
Gestures and posture —Watch out for nervous hands flying all over the place. This too can be distracting—and a bit comical. At the same time, don’t turn yourself into a mannequin. Plan to keep your hands clasped together or holding onto the podium and only occasionally making some gesture. Definitely keep your hands out of your pockets or waistband. As for posture, avoid slouching at the podium or leaning against the wall. Stand up straight, and keep your head up.
Verbal crutches —Watch out for too much “uh,” “you know,” “okay” and other kinds of nervous verbal habits. Instead of saying “uh” or “you know” every three seconds, just don’t say anything at all. In the days before your oral presentation, practice speaking without these verbal crutches. The silence that replaces them is not a bad thing—it gives listeners time to process what you are saying.

The following is an example of how topic headings can make your presentation easy for your listeners to follow.

Excerpt from an oral report

As you can see from the preceding, our fairly average-size city produces a surprisingly large amount of solid waste. What is the cost of getting rid of it? I can tell you from the start that it is not cheap…

The next sentence indicates that the speaker is moving on to a new topic (“cost”).

[discussion of the costs of disposal]

…Not only are the costs of getting rid of our garbage high, as I have shown, but it’s getting harder and harder for city officials to find areas in which to get rid of it. The geographical problems in disposal…

Planning and Preparing Visuals for the Oral Presentation

Prepare at least one visual for this report. Here are some ideas for the “medium” to use for your visuals:

Presentation software slides —Projecting images (“slides”) using software such as Powerpoint has become the standard, even though maligned by some. One common problem with the construction of these slides is cramming too much information on individual slides. A quick search on terms like Powerpoint presentation will enable you to read about creating these slides and designing them intelligently. Of course, the room in which you use these slides has to have a computer projector.
Transparencies for overhead projector —The overhead projector used with transparencies seems to have been relegated to antiquity—but not entirely. If you have to use this method, you will design your visual on a sheet of blank paper, then photocopy it, and create a transparency of it.
Posterboard-size charts —Another possibility is to get some poster board and draw and letter what you want your audience to see. Of course, it’s not easy making charts look neat and professional.
Handouts —You can run off copies of what you want your listeners to see and hand them out before or during your talk. This option is even less effective than the first two because you can’t point to what you want your listeners to see and because handouts distract listeners’ attention away from you. Still, for certain visual needs, handouts are the only choice. Keep in mind that if you are not well prepared, the handouts become a place for your distracted audience to doodle.
Objects —If you need to demonstrate certain procedures, you may need to bring in actual physical objects. Rehearse what you are going to do with these objects; sometimes they can take up a lot more time than you expect.

Avoid just scribbling your visual on the chalkboard or whiteboard. Whatever you scribble can be neatly prepared and made into a presentation slide, transparency, or posterboard-size chart. Take some time to make your visuals look sharp and professional—do your best to ensure that they are legible to the entire audience.

As for the content of your visuals, consider these ideas:

Drawing or diagram of key objects —If you describe or refer to any objects during your talk, try to get visuals of them so that you can point to different components or features.
Tables, charts, graphs —If you discuss statistical data, present it in some form or table, chart, or graph. Many members of your audience may be less comfortable “hearing” such data as opposed to seeing it.
Outline of your talk, report, or both —If you are at a loss for visuals to use in your oral presentation, or if your presentation is complex, have an outline of it that you can show at various points during your talk.
Key terms and definitions —A good idea for visuals (especially when you can’t think of any others) is to set up a two-column list of key terms you use during your oral presentation with their definitions in the second column.
Key concepts or points —Similarly, you can list your key points and show them in visuals. (Outlines, key terms, and main points are all good, legitimate ways of incorporating visuals into oral presentations when you can’t think of any others.)

During your actual oral report, make sure to discuss your visuals, refer to them, guide your listeners through the key points in your visuals. It’s a big problem just to throw a visual up on the screen and never even refer to it.

As you prepare your visuals, look at resources that will help you. There are many rules for using PowerPoint, down to the font size and how many words to put on a single slide, but you will have to choose the style that best suits your subject and your presentation style.

The two videos that follow will provide some pointers. As you watch them, make some notes to help you remember what you learn from them. The first one is funny: Life After Death by PowerPoint by Don McMillan, an engineer turned comedian.

Life After Death by PowerPoint

You may also have heard about the presentation skills of Steve Jobs. The video that follows is the introduction of the I-Phone…and as you watch, take notes on how Jobs sets up his talk and his visuals. Observe how he connects with the audience…and then see if you can work some of his strategies into your own presentation skills. This is a long video…you don’t need to watch it all but do take enough time to form some good impressions.

Steve Jobs iPhone Presentation

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12 tips for effective communication in ...

12 tips for effective communication in the workplace

Effective communication transcends simple information exchanges. Understanding the emotions and motives behind the given information is essential. In addition to successfully conveying messages, it's important to actively listen and fully understand the conversation, making the speaker feel heard and understood.

Today, we’re in almost constant contact with our coworkers. You might not put a lot of thought into saying “hi” to your coworker, grabbing virtual coffee with a remote team member, or sending a gif of a cat wearing pajamas to your team—and that’s ok. Even though you’re communicating at work, there’s a difference between these types of messages and communication in the workplace.

Communication in the workplace refers to the communication you do at work about work. Knowing when and how to effectively communicate at work can help you reduce miscommunication, increase team happiness, bolster collaboration, and foster trust. Teams that know how to communicate effectively about work are better prepared for difficult situations. But building good communication habits takes time and effort—and that’s where we come in. Here are 12 ways to take your workplace communication skills to the next level.

What is effective communication?

Effective communication is the exchange of ideas, thoughts, opinions, knowledge, and information so that the message is received and comprehended clearly and purposefully. When we communicate effectively, all stakeholders are fulfilled.

Developing effective communication skills requires a delicate balance of active listening, verbal communication, nonverbal cues, body language, and emotional intelligence to ensure messages are clearly transmitted and understood.

It's about more than just talking; effective communication involves listening skills and a deep understanding of interpersonal dynamics. Individuals can use these communication skills to bridge gaps, make informed decisions, and strengthen relationships.

What does “workplace communication” mean?

Communication in the workplace can happen face-to-face, in writing, over a video conferencing platform, on social media, or in a group meeting. It can also happen in real time or asynchronously , which happens when you’re communicating about work over email, with recorded video, or on a platform like a project management tool . Some examples of workplace communication include:

Team meetings

1:1 feedback sessions

Receiving information

Communicating about project status or progress

Collaboration on cross-functional tasks

Nonverbal communication

Collaboration Report: How the most effective teams in the world collaborate

Explore key traits that have made the most effective teams in the world successful: their strategies, techniques, and tips for working well together.

What makes communication effective?

Now that you know what type of communication can be included in workplace communication, how do you start getting better at it? There are a few key tenets of effective communication that you can use, no matter what type of communication it is. In particular, good communication:

Aims for clarity. Whether you’re sending a Slack message, drafting an email, or giving an off-the-cuff reply, aim to be clear and concise with your communication.

Seeks to solve conflicts, not create them. In the workplace, we're often involved in problem solving and collaborating on projects or tasks. Good communication in the workplace can involve bringing up blockers or providing feedback—but make sure the goal is to get to a better place than where you are now.

Goes both ways. Every instance of effective communication in the workplace represents an exchange of information—even when the information is communicated solely through nonverbal cues.

Benefits of effective communication in the workplace

Clear, effective workplace communication can:

Boost employee engagement and belonging

Improve interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence

Encourage team buy-in

Increase productivity

Build a healthy workplace and organizational culture

Reduce conflict

Increase retention

7 tips for more effective communication in the workplace

Effective communication in the workplace is all about where, how, and when you’re communicating. Try these seven tips to develop better communication skills.

1. Know where to communicate—and about what

Communication happens in many different forms—face-to-face, over email, via instant messages, and in work management platforms. To be most effective, make sure you’re following communication guidelines and messaging about the right things in the right places.

Sometimes, knowing where to communicate is half the battle. Your company may have different communication tools , which makes knowing which tool to use all the more important. Which tool is appropriate for your question or comment? Do you need to communicate in real time, or is it ok to send an asynchronous message? If you’re not sure, ask a team member or manager where you should be sending different types of messages. It is important for everyone to be on the same page. For example, at Asana, we use:

2. Build collaboration skills

Collaboration is the bedrock of effective teamwork. In order to build strong team collaboration skills , you need to practice open and honest communication. This doesn’t necessarily mean always agreeing on things—knowing how to disagree and work through those differences is a key part of collaboration, too.

Collaboration and communication skills are kind of a “chicken and egg” scenario. You can build good collaboration by communicating effectively, but knowing how to collaborate is a key component of strong communication. Essentially, this just means you’ll have to practice improving both collaboration and communication skills over time. As you improve team collaboration, you’ll get better at conveying information and opinions in a work environment—and as a result, that honest communication will make collaboration feel more effortless.

3. Talk face-to-face when you can

Perhaps the most tried-and-true way to avoid miscommunication is to talk face-to-face. If your team is virtual, speaking via video conferencing also works. Eye contact is particularly important if you know a conversation is going to be hard. Tone can be difficult to communicate through writing so ideally, you want your team member to be able to see your facial expressions and body language.

If your team is remote or distributed, communicating via a phone call instead of a video conference could work as well. Video conferencing fatigue is real, and it can make collaboration and communication particularly difficult for remote teams. Communicating over the phone reduces some of the visual strain, while still giving you the ability to hear your team member’s voice and tone.

4. Watch your body language and tone of voice

Communication isn’t just about what you say—it’s also about how you say it. Make sure you aren’t crossing your arms or coming off as curt. Oftentimes, your body language may have nothing to do with the current situation—maybe you’re tired or stressed about something in your personal life. But your team members, who might not have that context, could see your actions and assume you’re angry or upset about something. Particularly for hard conversations, try to relax your body language and facial expressions to avoid giving off any unintentional cues.

5. Prioritize two-way communication

Listening skills are just as important to communication in the workplace as talking. Part of being a collaborative team member is listening to other people’s ideas instead of just trying to put your own ideas out there.

There are two common types of listening : listening to reply and listening to understand. When you listen to reply, you’re focusing on what you’re going to say next, rather than what the other person is saying. With this type of listening, you risk missing key information or even repeating what the other person just said.

Instead, try active listening—that is, listen to what the other person has to say without thinking about how you’re going to reply. If you do think of something you want to say, jot it down so you can go back to listening to understand , instead of trying to remember the thing you want to say next.

6. Stick to facts, not stories

“Facts vs. stories” is a technique recommended by the co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group, Diana Chapman. In this case, “facts” are things that have actually happened—things that everyone in the room would easily agree on. A “story,” on the other hand, is your interpretation of the situation.

For example, say your manager gives you live feedback during a small team meeting. That is a fact. You weren’t expecting the feedback, and you feel like your manager shared the feedback—instead of saving it for your 1:1—because they’re dissatisfied with your work. This is a “story” because you have no way of knowing if it is true or not.

Stories are inevitable—we all create stories from facts. But try to separate stories from facts, and avoid acting on stories until you’re able to validate them. For example, in this case, you might want to talk to your manager during your next 1:1 and ask why they shared feedback in a team meeting.

7. Make sure you’re speaking to the right person

Effective workplace communication is as much about who you’re talking to as it is about what you’re saying. Poor communication often occurs when you’re talking to the wrong people or trying to share information in the wrong setting.

To avoid this, make sure the right people are in the room or receiving the message. If you aren’t sure who that would be, go through an exercise to identify any important project stakeholders who might be missing.

5 tips to build effective communication skills in the workplace

If you’re a leader, you have the power to set and establish communication conventions on your team. Effective communication skills can build healthy company culture , foster trust among your employees, and break down silos between cross-functional teams. Here’s how:

1. Address any underlying changes

Before you start improving your team’s communication skills, ensure there are no underlying issues that keep everyone from communicating honestly. Does everyone feel comfortable talking openly? Is there anything that might make a team member feel like they can’t be their full selves?

One of the most valuable things you can do as a leader is to make sure your employees feel comfortable showing up to work as their whole selves (or as much of themselves as they want to bring). Whether that means voicing disagreements, talking about their passions outside of work, or being honest about what type of communication works best for them, make sure to understand each team member’s needs and ensure they’re being met in the team environment.

One theme that kept coming up in our employee engagement surveys was that we could improve information sharing and communication across the organization, so we looked for a way to do that.”

2. Frequently ask for feedback

If you don’t ask for feedback on your communication style, you may never get it. Even though communication in the workplace impacts every other interaction, team members might not immediately think of it as something to provide feedback on. By asking your employees for feedback on your communication style, you can continue to improve and develop clear communication strategies for your team.

3. Understand team communication styles

Another effective way to communicate with your team is to ask them how they want to communicate. Communication preferences shouldn’t be a secret—or a guessing game—and knowing off the bat if your team members prefer video conferences or phone calls, early morning meetings, or afternoon jam sessions can help you create an environment where they can thrive.

Important questions to ask include:

Are they an early bird or a night owl?

Do they like structured meetings or prefer free-flow brainstorming sessions?

Do they do their best thinking out loud, on the spot, or on paper?

What personality type do they identify with: introvert, extrovert, or ambivert?

Do they feel like they know their team members, or would they prefer more team bonding activities?

What types of meetings or tasks are most energizing for them?

4. Make time for team building or icebreakers

Getting to know your team is critical to developing good communication skills. It’s particularly important to make time to get to know your team outside of a workplace setting. Icebreaker questions can help bring an element of personality and fun to every meeting, so consider starting with a light chat before diving into your meeting agenda.

5. Set the tone

Remember: the way you communicate and collaborate will impact your entire team. It’s up to you to set the standard for open and clear communication in the workplace. Once you establish this standard, your team will follow suit.

Every few months, make a note to follow up with how everyone is feeling about team communication. Are there any habits that have cropped up in the last few months that you want to cull or encourage? Regularly thinking about how your team communicates—instead of “setting and forgetting” your team practices—can help you be more intentional about your communication methods.

As an organization grows, communication starts to bottleneck. At Hope for Haiti, we’ve seen those inefficiencies hurt us: when we can’t run like a well-oiled machine, we’re not serving as many people as we could be—and it’s our responsibility to improve upon that.”

More types of workplace communication

Most discussions about communication in the workplace assume the “workplace” is in person. But there are various forms of communication across different locations—from global offices to remote teams. Most effective communication best practices still apply to any type of team, but there are a few additional considerations and best practices you can use to help team members truly connect.

Distributed teams

Distributed teams work across multiple national or global offices. These teams might span different time zones and languages, and each office will have its own culture and habits. Don’t expect each distributed team to communicate in the same way—in fact, one of the advantages of distributed teams is the variety of thought you’re exposed to by working with teammates from all over the world.

If you work on a distributed team, it’s critical to over-communicate so that team members in different time zones and offices stay in the loop. Make sure to document everything in a central source of truth that team members can access when they’re online, and look for a tool that updates in real-time so no one has to slow down due to information lag.

Keep in mind that time zones might affect how people come to a conversation. Try to schedule meetings when everyone is available, or offer recordings and notes if team members can’t make it. It’s also critical to double check that the right people are in the loop, and that they aren’t just being left out because they’re in a different office than the majority of your team.

Online coworkers

If you’re working with a virtual team, it’s critical to establish where you’re going to communicate and how frequently. Knowing exactly what each communication tool should be used for can help team members feel connected—even while they’re remote.

While working remotely, we’ve had to re-learn how to communicate in many ways. Slack, Asana, and integrations between these tools has replaced or supplemented a lot of in-person ways we used to communicate.”

Remote team members can feel isolated and disconnected from one another, so consider doing an exercise with your entire team about preferred business communication habits. Some team members might love cold calls, while others might prefer scheduled meetings with concise agendas. Because team members have fewer chances to interact in person, it’s critical to establish these forms of communication as a team so you can keep the communication channels open.

Finally, make sure to bring team members in for regular team bonding events. Whether you’re doing icebreaker activities at the beginning of every meeting or scheduling some time to just chat at the end of each week, dedicated team time can help team members connect, no matter where they’re dialing in from.

The cherry on top of effective workplace communication

The last component of great communication is having a central source of truth for all of your communication and work information. Using a centralized system like a work management tool can help you coordinate work across all levels of your team. Learn more about how work management makes project coordination and communication easier in our introduction to work management article .

FAQ: Effective communication in the workplace

What are the best ways of communicating with your work colleagues.

The best ways of communicating with your work colleagues involve concise, respectful, and timely exchanges. This can be achieved through various channels, such as emails, instant messaging, face-to-face meetings, and video calls. Selecting the right medium based on the context of your communication (e.g., using emails for formal requests or Slack for quick queries) and ensuring you're concise and to the point can enhance the effectiveness of your communication.

Why is effective communication important?

Effective communication ensures that information is accurately conveyed and understood, resulting in improved efficiency, fewer misunderstandings, and better working relationships. It promotes teamwork, decision-making, and problem solving, which makes effective communication a cornerstone of successful operations and a positive work environment.

What constitutes effective communication?

Effective communication is characterized by clarity, conciseness, coherence, and considerateness, also known as the 5 Cs of communication. It means the message is delivered in a clear and understandable manner, is direct and to the point, logically organized, and sensitive to the receiver's needs and perspectives. It also involves active listening, openness to feedback, and the ability to adjust or paraphrase the message according to the audience and context.

How can you become an effective communicator?

To become an effective communicator, focus on clarity and brevity in your messages, actively listen to others, and provide constructive feedback. Pay attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues, such as body language and tone, to ensure your message is received as intended. Practice empathy by considering the receiver's perspective, and be open to feedback to continuously improve your public speaking skills.

Related resources

Don’t let your digital tools sabotage the employee experience

Unmanaged business goals don’t work. Here’s what does.

How Asana uses work management to drive product development

How Asana uses work management to streamline project intake processes

The Importance of Communication Skills in Oral Presentations

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Nonverbal Communication in Interviews

Tips on a great capstone presentation, steps to a good retirement speech.

How to Give an Informative Speech
How to Use Good Communication Skills for Cross-Cultural Diversity

The importance of communication and presentation skills can sometimes go unnoticed or be the hardest to develop. Even though presentations are a common occurrence in business and student life, the skills necessary to speak effectively in public are often the weakest.

Importance of Communication and Presentation Skills

Sometimes, there is a tendency to brush aside communication and presentation skills in the workplace and student life due to the anxiety caused by public speaking. However, whether you are looking to make a deal or receive a grade, how you communicate with others is essential to your success.

Since there is no denying the importance of oral presentations, the first step to becoming better communicators and presenters is understanding the structure and goals of an oral presentation.

Oral Presentation Anatomy

An oral presentation has three parts: the opening, the body and the conclusion. Just like an essay, an oral presentation needs to have a clear and precise structure so that the audience does not get lost during your presentation. Inc. notes that the opening of oral presentations should establish an emotional connection with the audience. This can be done through an anecdote, a question or relevant statistics. Whatever method you use, it should somehow represent the audience or a connection that will be important to them.

Keep your presentation’s goal in mind throughout the body. Stick to a few key points, only expanding on them when necessary with relevant, supportive materials. Whatever information you are forced to leave out due to time constraints may be covered through follow-up questions.

The closing section of the presentation should leave the audience with something that resonates. Reiterate a significant phrase or your key points; don’t let the presentation’s point get lost.

Improving Communication and Presentation Skills

Nonverbal communication is an essential part of the communication skills arsenal. Thomas Jefferson University experts explain that body language and other nonverbal cues play a significant role in how others perceive you. Awareness of your nonverbal cues such as eye contact, posture and tone can be used to your advantage in keeping an audience engaged.

In addition to maintaining an organized structure, you may need to reshape your view of rehearsal to improve presentation skills. According to Inc., rehearsing is not memorizing. Most people are not actors and therefore cannot emote when reciting memorized words the same way they would if they were making it up on the fly.

To improve your communication and presentation skills, try not to perfectly memorize your speech. Instead, memorize the structure and become familiar with the words. This way, when you feel you have the presentation down, take a step back and focus on calming your nerves rather than cramming until the very last moment so that you can speak clearly when needed. It’s also critical to know your audience. Do your research so you can match their demographic in tone, semantics and speech patterns, Inc. explains. Tailor your descriptions and word choice to who will be listening.

Active Listening Is Key

Communication skills extend beyond how well you can illustrate your point; many people forget that the other half of communication is active listening. Strong communicators are active listeners.

According to Insider , a key reminder to improve communication skills is not to monopolize the conversation. Let others speak and ask follow-up questions so they know you are listening.

Don’t forget to follow-up with questions and comments, demonstrating that you have been paying attention by considering the presentation. When you can convey to others that you are actively listening to what they have to say, they will return the favor.

Inc.: How to Improve Your Presentation Skills
Thomas Jefferson University: The 5 Most Critical Business Communication Skills for Getting Ahead
Insider: I'm a CEO and the Most Underrated Business Skill Is One Most People Are Terrible At

Danielle Smyth is a writer and content marketer from upstate New York. She has been writing on business-related topics for nearly 10 years. She owns her own content marketing agency, Wordsmyth Creative Content Marketing, and she works with a number of small businesses to develop B2B content for their websites, social media accounts, and marketing materials. In addition to this content, she has written business-related articles for sites like Sweet Frivolity, Alliance Worldwide Investigative Group, Bloom Co and Spent.

How to do an effective business presentation introduction, how to become a good public speaker, business presentation importance, ineffective communication styles, techniques of effective listening for effective meetings & project reports, public speaking strengths, workplace presentation tips, non-confrontational communication with co-workers, how to communicate concisely, most popular.

1 How to Do an Effective Business Presentation Introduction
2 How to Become a Good Public Speaker
3 Business Presentation Importance
4 Ineffective Communication Styles

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Effective Oral Presentations

Verbally (and as a general rule), do not write down and memorize or read your full text, because then your presentation will sound like what it is: a recited written text. Instead, memorize the outline of your presentation — that is, a tree structure of main points and subpoints — and speak ex tempore, reinventing the words as you go along. As you do, you will occasionally need to think about what to say next and find the most appropriate words to say it. Instead of using filler words ( um , er , you know , I mean , etc.), simply pause. If you say um , you get about half a second of thinking time and the audience is likely to notice the um and be irritated by it. If you keep silent, you can get up to two or three seconds of thinking time without the audience noticing anything. Even if attendees do notice the silence, they will simply think that you are choosing your words carefully — and there is nothing wrong with that.

Despite pointing often at the screen, Marie nicely faces the audience with her body at all times, keeps her hands down between gestures, and maintains eye contact with the attendees. Transcript Vocally, vary the tone, rate, and volume of your voice as a function of the meaning, complexity, and importance of what you are saying. You need not invent a new intonation pattern: You simply need to amplify your normal pattern.

Visually, control your body. Adopt a stable, confident position; move only when you have a positive reason to do so (for example, move closer to the audience for taking questions), not when your body seems to ask for it. When you make a gesture, make it large and deliberate; between gestures, bring your hands down and do not fidget. Establish eye contact: Engage the audience by looking them straight in the eyes.

At all times, make sure you address the audience. Even if you have slides, tell the audience your story in a stand-alone way; do not just explain your slides. In particular, anticipate your slides. You should know at all times what your next slide is about so you can insert an appropriate transition.

Delivering as a non-native speaker

To keep the audience engaged , Jean-luc emphasizes his points with facial expressions, purposeful gestures, and — especially — a high dynamic range in his vocal delivery. Transcript If you are a non-native speaker of English, you may find it more challenging to speak ex tempore in English than in your native language. Still, even imperfect extemporaneous English is more likely to engage the audience than reciting a more polished, less spontaneous written text. To improve your delivery and overall presentation as a non-native speaker, practice more, pace yourself, and support your spoken discourse with appropriate slides.

While all speakers benefit from practicing their presentations multiple times, consider investing more time in such practice if you are less familiar with the language. Practicing helps you identify missing vocabulary, including key technical terms (which are difficult to circumvent), and express your ideas more fluently. As you practice, you may want to prepare a list of difficult words (to review on the day of your presentation) or write down an occasional complex yet crucial sentence. Still, do not feel bound to what you write down. These notes should be a help, not a constraint.

Practicing in front of an audience (a few colleagues, for example) can help you correct or refine your pronunciation. If you are unsure how to pronounce some words or phrases, you can ask native speakers in advance or check online dictionaries that offer phonetic spelling or audio rendering. Still, you may be unaware of certain words you mispronounce; a practice audience can point these words out to you if you invite it to do so.

During your presentation, pace yourself. As a non-native speaker, you may feel you need to search for your words more often or for a longer time than in your native language, but the mechanism is the same. Do not let this challenge pressure you. Give yourself the time you need to express your ideas clearly. Silence is not your enemy; it is your friend.

Pacing yourself also means speaking more slowly than you otherwise might, especially if you have an accent in English. Accents are common among non-native speakers — and among specific groups of native speakers, too — and they are not a problem as long as they are mild. Often, they are experienced as charming. Still, they take some getting used to. Remember to slow down, especially at the beginning of a presentation, so your audience can get used to your accent, whether native or not.

Handling stage fright and mishaps

Most speakers, even experienced ones, are nervous before or during an oral presentation. Such stage fright is normal and even reassuring: It shows that you care, and you should care if you want to deliver an effective presentation. Accordingly, accept your stage fright rather than feeling guilty about it. Instead of trying to suppress nervousness, strive to focus your nervous energy in your voice, your gestures, and your eye contact. Do not let it dissipate into entropy, such as by using filler words or engaging in nervous mannerisms.

Among the many ways to keep your nerves under control, perhaps the most effective one is to focus constructively on your purpose at all times. Before your presentation, eliminate all the unknowns: Prepare your presentation well, identify (or even meet) your audience, and know the room. During the presentation, do what it takes to get your message across, even if it means doing something differently than you had planned. Have a positive attitude about the presentation at all times: Visualize what you want to achieve, not what you want to avoid.

Even with careful preparation, mishaps can occur. For example, technology may fail, you may forget what you wanted to say, or you may accidentally say the wrong thing. As a rule, do not apologize for what happens — neither in advance nor after the fact. Although well-meant, such apologies provide no benefit to the audience: They are noise. If you can do something about the problem, such as fix the technology or insert what you forgot later in the presentation, concentrate on doing so instead of apologizing. If the problem is out of your control, then there is no need to apologize for it. As a specific example, if you feel your command of English is poor, then do what you can in advance to improve it; in particular, practice your presentation thoroughly. Then, on the day of the presentation, do your best with the command you have, but do not apologize at the beginning of the presentation for what you think is poor English. This apology will not solve anything, and it gives the attendees a negative image of you. Rather, let the attendees judge for themselves whether your command of English is sufficient (perhaps it is, despite what you might think). In other words, focus on delivering results, not excuses.

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Chapter 3: Oral Presentations

Patricia Williamson

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. Such presentations are usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a PowerPoint. Yet, students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group. This chapter aims to help calms those nerves.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.
For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.
If you are an experienced presenter then you may wish to jog your memory about the basics or gain some fresh insights about technique.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, to entertain, to persuade the audience, or to educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on two separate-but-related competencies within a set timeframe: the ability to speak and the quality of the spoken content. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Tips for Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?
Breathe. You are in control. You’ve got this!

Group Presentation

All of the above applies; however, you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
Consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Determining strengths and weaknesses will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group; however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining PowerPoint slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of PowerPoint slides) for the whole group; you may consider using a shared cloud drive so that there is no need to integrate slides later on.
Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
Rehearse as a group–more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics and then do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down into manageable parts .

Creating a presentation differs from writing an essay in that the information in the speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept, or new information that you write, you need to think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a PowerPoint slide. Many guides, such as Marsen (2020), will suggest no more than five points per slide, with each bullet point have no more than six words (for a maximum of 30 words per slide). After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the PowerPoint. Your presentation skills are being evaluated, but this evaluation may include only a small percentage for the actual visual aid: check your assessment guidelines.

Using Visual Aids

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point)
Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the PowerPoint file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

The specific requirements for your papers may differ. Again, ensure that you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive PowerPoint though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

Rehearse with the PowerPoint.
Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
Don’t let the PowerPoint just be something happening in the background while you speak.
Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication includes the ways that we communicate without speaking. You use nonverbal communication everyday–often without thinking about it. Consider meeting a friend on the street: you may say “hello”, but you may also smile, wave, offer your hand to shake, and the like. Here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Even if you may be nervous (which is natural), the following will help you look confident and professional:

Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence, but more importantly it allows you to breathe freely. Remember that breathing well allows you to project your voice, but it also prevents your body from experiencing extra stress.
If you have the space, move when appropriate. You can, for example, move to gesture to a more distant visual aid or to get closer to different part of the audience who might be answering a question.
If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to gesticulate constantly. Use gestures purposefully to highlight, illustrate, motion, or the like.
Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, such as ‘finger-combing’ your hair or touching your face.
Avoid ‘verbal fidgets’ such as “umm” or “ahh”; silence is ok. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
Avoid distractions that you can control. Put your phone on “do not disturb” or turn it off completely.
Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members.
Have a cheerful demeaner. Remember that your audience will mirror your demeanor.
Maintain an engaging tone in your voice, by varying tone, pace, and emphasis. Match emotion to concept; slow when concepts might be difficult; stress important words.
Don’t read your presentation–present it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
Make eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

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Chapter 3: Oral Presentations Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Oral Presentation Strategies

Oral Presentation Strategies can help a professional decrease the fear of speaking in public or front of a few listeners. These strategies are more than therapy because they not only improve the Business Communication skills of the presenter but also improve the skills with a new form that enhances the career of the presenter.

Sometimes, professionals forget that being in the field of business administration is not so easy, as it requires hard work and the power to speak in public.

The following are a few oral presentation strategies that will surely help a professional/presenter to give a brief view of their ideas, which will grab the attention of the audience and will improve the talking ability of the presenter.

1. Homework

Homework stands on top in the oral presentation strategies, because if you did not do your homework, how you may get better results. It is impossible to deliver a good presentation and put the idea of the presenter in the minds of the audience without spending serious time on preparation.

Sometimes, the audience gets impressed watching the tone of the presenter. The fact is that every presenter who possesses a powerful tone spends huge time at home preparing the presentation.

2. Try the Presentation

After doing the complete preparation of the presentation at home, the next thing is to try it on the office staff or the boss to make sure it is on the right track and the tone of the presenter is exactly according to the presentation.

3. Organize in Parts

An effective presentation is prepared by dividing it into a few parts. It is observed that most effective presentations contain two to three main parts. The presenter should tell the audience what these parts are, before or during the presentation. It may lead to a win.

4. Go Through

A night before the presentation, the presenter should go through the presentation a few times to check the period and ability to deliver the ideas. To make it more convenient, the presenter should ask a friend to pretend like the audience, who will help the presenter to improve the weak spots of the presentation.

Sometimes, the presenter gets stuck at a point, which can create a negative impact on the audience. To prevent such things, the presenter should prepare mental notes and try to remember the difficult points.

5۔ Appearance and Talking

Wearing the highest quality suit is unnecessary, but appearing in the presentation after getting off bed also does not sound good.

In short, the presenter should get an attractive dress that creates an impression on the audience. While on the other hand, looking down at papers constantly will bore the audience.

The presenter should talk more than read from the papers. To avoid the certain issue, creating outline notes is a good idea because it will require the presenter to look down only occasionally.

6۔ Using Aids + Keeping Slow Speed

In a few important presentations, it is necessary to use visual aids for defining major points properly. This will make the audience memorize every single idea of the presentation. Sometimes, a couple of things are incomplete without aids.

Same as aids, it is also necessary that the presenter should keep a slow speed while talking. The audience needs to hear and understand everything clearly.

Many inexperienced professionals make this mistake by moving very fast without realizing that the audience does not understand.

7. To the Point Info

Putting unnecessary dates or a huge number of quotations will bore the audience even if the audience is attentive. Simply, including all the data which is to the point will be good because it will engage the audience.

Besides, the presenter should try to show what he/she is. Being a person from another planet will create a bad impact on the presentation.

8. Eye Contract

One of the most important factors of an oral presentation is to keep eye contact with the audience. This will prove that the presenter has efficient communication skills.

The presenter is supposed to look into the eyes of every single person sitting in the room and even at those as well who are just nodding and sitting in the back.

9. Conclusion

Make every listener understand the primary purpose of the presentation by finishing it with a satisfying conclusion. The audience will understand that the presentation has surely taught them anything new and useful.

10. Interruptions

Many speakers think that raised questions from the audience are hurdles, but in fact, two-way communication not only clarifies the idea of the person who asked the question but also clarifies the ideas of others. The presenter should be prepared to answer the relative question to the topic and offer a warm welcome to the interruptions.

At last, the presenter should keep everything in order and on the right track. Knowing when to start the presentation, when to stop, when to take a break for drinking water, when to put an effective issue in front of the audience, and when to stop giving a lecture, all this will prove that the speaker is well familiar with the basic oral presentation strategies, which are important for any sorts of presentation.

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Chapter 12: Public Speaking in Various Contexts

12.3 speaking in business settings, learning objectives.

Employ audience analysis to adapt communication to supervisors, colleagues, employees, and clients.
Explain the role of intercultural communication competence in intercultural business communication contexts.
Identify strategies for handling question-and-answer periods.
Identify strategies for effectively planning and delivering common business presentations, including briefings, reports, training, and meetings.

Most people’s goal for a college degree is to work in a desired career field. Many of you are probably working while taking this class and already have experience with speaking in business settings. As you advance in your career, and potentially change career paths as many Americans do now, the nature of your communication and the contexts in which you speak will change. Today’s workers must be able to adapt content, level of formality, and format to various audiences including the public, clients, and colleagues (Dannels, 2001). What counts as a good communicator for one audience and in one field may not in another. There is wide variety of research and resources related to business communication that cannot be included in this section. The International Association of Business Communicators is a good resource for people interested in a career in this area: http://www.iabc.com .

Adapt to Your Audience

Speaking in business settings requires adaptability as a communicator. Hopefully the skills that you are building to improve your communication competence by taking this class will enable you to be adaptable and successful. The following suggestions for adapting to your audience are based on general characteristics; therefore expect variations and exceptions. A competent communicator can use categories and strategies like these as a starting point but must always monitor the communication taking place and adapt as needed. In many cases, you may have a diverse audience with supervisors, colleagues, and employees, in which case you would need to employ multiple strategies for effective business communication.

Even though much of the day-to-day communication within organizations is written in the form of memos, e-mails, and reports, oral communication has an important place. The increase in documentation is related to an epidemic of poor listening. Many people can’t or don’t try to retain information they receive aurally, while written communication provides a record and proof that all the required and detailed information was conveyed. An increase in written communication adds time and costs that oral communication doesn’t. Writing and reading are slower forms of communication than speaking, and face-to-face speaking uses more human senses, allows for feedback and clarification, and helps establish relationships (Nichols & Stevens, 1999).

Much communication in the workplace is written for the sake of documentation. Oral communication, however, is often more efficient if people practice good listening skills.

Queen’s University – Alumn i Volunteer Summit – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

It’s important to remember that many people do not practice good listening skills and that being understood contributes to effectiveness and success. You obviously can’t make someone listen better or require him or her to listen actively, but you can strive to make your communication more listenable and digestible for various audiences.

Speaking to Executives/Supervisors

Upward communication includes speeches, proposals, or briefings that are directed at audience members who hold higher positions in the organizational hierarchy than the sender. Upward communication is usually the most lacking within an organization, so it is important to take advantage of the opportunity and use it to your advantage (Nichols & Stevens, 1999). These messages usually function to inform supervisors about the status or results of projects and provide suggestions for improvement, which can help people feel included in the organizational process and lead to an increased understanding and acceptance of management decisions (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005). So how do we adapt messages for upward communication?

The “executive summary” emerged from the fact that executives have tightly scheduled days and prefer concise, relevant information. Executive summaries are usually produced in written form but must also be conveyed orally. You should build some repetition and redundancy into an oral presentation of an executive summary, but you do not need such repetition in the written version. This allows you to emphasize a main idea while leaving some of the supporting facts out of an oral presentation. If an executive or supervisor leaves a presentation with a clear understanding of the main idea, the supporting material and facts will be meaningful when they are reviewed later. However, leaving a presentation with facts but not the main idea may result in the need for another presentation or briefing, which costs an organization time and money. Even when such a misunderstanding is due to the executives’ poor listening skills, it will likely be you who is blamed.

Employees want to be seen as competent, and demonstrating oral communication skills is a good way to be noticed and show off your technical and professional abilities (Bartolome, 1999). Presentations are “high-visibility tasks” that establish a person’s credibility when performed well (Weinholdt, 2006). Don’t take advantage of this visibility to the point that you perform only for the boss or focus on him or her at the expense of other people in the audience. Do, however, tailor your message to the “language of executives.” Executives and supervisors often have a more macro perspective of an organization and may be concerned with how day-to-day tasks match with the mission and vision of the organization. So making this connection explicit in your presentation can help make your presentation stand out.

Be aware of the organizational hierarchy and territory when speaking to executives and supervisors. Steering into terrain that is under someone else’s purview can get you in trouble if that person guards his or her territory (McCaskey, 1999). For example, making a suggestion about marketing during a presentation about human resources can ruffle the marketing manager’s feathers and lead to negative consequences for you. Also be aware that it can be challenging to deliver bad news to a boss. When delivering bad news, frame it in a way that highlights your concern for the health of the organization. An employee’s reluctance to discuss problems with a boss leads to more risk for an organization (Bartolome, 1999). The sooner a problem is known, the better for the organization.

Speaking to Colleagues

Much of our day-to-day communication in business settings is horizontal communication with our colleagues or people who are on the same approximate level in the organizational hierarchy. This communication may occur between colleagues working in the same area or between colleagues with different areas of expertise. Such horizontal communication usually functions to help people coordinate tasks, solve problems, and share information. When effective, this can lead to more cooperation among employees and a greater understanding of the “big picture” or larger function of an organization. When it is not effective, this can lead to territoriality, rivalry, and miscommunication when speaking across knowledge and task areas that require specialization (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005).

Many colleagues work collaboratively to share ideas and accomplish tasks together. In a sharing environment, it can be easy to forget where an idea started. This becomes an issue when it comes time for credit or recognition to be given. Make sure to give credit to people who worked with you on a project or an idea. If you can’t remember where an idea came from, it may be better to note that it was a “group effort” than to assume it was yours and risk alienating a colleague.

Speaking to Supervisees/Employees

Downward communication includes messages directed at audience members who hold a lower place on the organizational hierarchy than the sender. As a supervisor, you will also have to speak to people whom you manage or employ. Downward communication usually involves job instructions, explanations of organizational policies, providing feedback, and welcoming newcomers to an organization.

Supervisors can set a good example by keeping a good flow of information going to their employees.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

This type of communication can have positive results in terms of preventing or correcting employee errors and increasing job satisfaction and morale. If the communication is not effective, it can lead to unclear messages that lead to misunderstandings and mistakes (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005).

During this type of “top-down” communication, employees may not ask valuable questions. So it is important to create an open atmosphere that encourages questions. Even though including an open discussion after a presentation takes more time, it helps prevent avoidable mistakes and wasted time and money. Let your audience know before a presentation that you will take questions, and then officially open the floor to questions when you are ready. Question-and-answer sessions are a good way to keep information flowing in an organization, and there is more information about handling these sessions in the “Getting Competent” box in this chapter.

A good supervisor should keep his or her employees informed, provide constructive feedback, explain the decisions and policies of the organization, be honest about challenges and problems, and facilitate the flow of information (Bartolome, 1999). Information should flow to and away from supervisors. Supervisors help set the tone for the communication climate of an organization and can serve as models of expectations of oral communication. Being prepared, consistent, open, and engaging helps sustain communication, which helps sustain morale. Supervisors also send messages, intentional or unintentional, based on where they deliver their presentations. For example, making people come to the executive conference room may be convenient for the boss but intimidating for other workers (Larkin & Larkin, 1999).

Speaking to Clients / Customers / Funding Sources

Communication to outside stakeholders includes messages sent from service providers to people who are not employed by the organization but conduct business with or support it. These stakeholders include clients, customers, and funding sources. Communication to stakeholders may be informative or persuasive. When first starting a relationship with one of these stakeholders, the communication is likely to be persuasive in nature, trying to convince either a client to take services, a customer to buy a product, or a funding source to provide financing. Once a relationship is established, communication may take the form of more informative progress reports and again turn persuasive when it comes time to renegotiate or renew a contract or agreement.

As with other types of workplace communication, information flow is important. Many people see a lack of information flow as a sign of trouble, so make sure to be consistent in your level of communication through progress reports or status briefings even if there isn’t a major development to report. Strategic ambiguity may be useful in some situations, but too much ambiguity also leads to suspicions that can damage a provider-client relationship. Make sure your nonverbal communication doesn’t contradict your verbal communication.

When preparing for a presentation to clients, customers, or funding sources, start to establish a relationship before actually presenting. This will help you understand what they want and need and will allow you to tailor your presentation to their needs. These interactions also help establish rapport, which can increase your credibility. Many people making a proposal mistakenly focus on themselves or their product or service. Focus instead on the needs of the client. Listen closely to what they say and then explain their needs as you see them and how your product or service will satisfy those needs (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005). Focus on the positive consequences or benefits that will result from initiating a business relationship with you. If you’ll recall from Chapter 11 “Informative and Persuasive Speaking” , this is similar to Monroe’s Motivated Sequence organization pattern, which gets the audience’s attention, establishes the existence of a need or problem, presents a solution to fill the need, asks the audience to visualize positive results of adopting the solution, and then calls the audience to action.

Use sophisticated and professional visual aids to help sell your idea, service, or product. You can use strategies from our earlier discussion of visual aids, but add a sales twist. Develop a “money slide” that gets the audience’s attention with compelling and hopefully selling content that makes audience members want to reach for their pen to sign a check or a contract (Morgan & Whitener, 2006).

Include a “money slide” in your presentation to potential clients or customers that really sells your idea.

Yair Aronshtam – Slide projector – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Proposals and pitches may be cut short, so imagine what you would do if you arrived to present and were told that you had to cut it down to one minute. If you were prepared, you could pull out your money slide. The money slide could be the most important finding, a startling or compelling statistic, an instructive figure or chart, or some other combination of text and graphic that connects to the listener. Avoid the temptation to make a complicated money slide. The point isn’t to fit as much as you can onto one slide but to best communicate the most important idea or piece of information you have. A verbal version of the money slide is the elevator speech. This is your sales pitch that captures the highlights of what you have to offer that can be delivered in a short time frame. I recommend developing a thirty-second, one-minute, and two-minute version of your elevator speech and having it on standby at all times.

Speaking in Intercultural Contexts

It’s no surprise that business communication is occurring in more intercultural contexts. Many companies and consulting firms offer cross-cultural training for businesspeople, and college programs in cross-cultural training and international business also help prepare people to conduct business in intercultural contexts. For specific information about conducting business in more than thirty-two countries, you can visit the following link: http://www.cyborlink.com .

While these trainings and resources are beneficial, many people expect intercultural business communication training to be reduced to a series of checklists or rules for various intercultural interactions that may be conveyed in a two-hour, predeparture “everything you need to know about Japanese business culture” training. This type of culture-specific approach to cross-cultural training does not really stand up to the complex situations in which international business communicators find themselves (Victor, 1993). Scholars trained more recently in culture and communication prefer a culture-general approach that focuses on “tools” rather than “rules.” Remember that intercultural competence is relative to the native and host cultures of the people involved in an intercultural encounter, and therefore notions of what is interculturally competent change quickly (Ulijn et al., 2000). To review some of our earlier discussion, elements of intercultural competence involve the ability to identify potential misunderstandings before they occur, be a high self-monitor, and be aware of how self and others make judgments of value (Ulijn et al., 2000).

I will overview some intercultural business communication tips that are more like rules, but remember there are always exceptions, so other competent communication skills should be on standby to help you adapt when the rules approach stops working (Thrush, 1993).

In terms of verbal communication, make sure to use good pronunciation and articulation. Even if you speak a different language than your audience, clearer communication on your part will help the message get through better. Avoid idiomatic expressions and acronyms, since the meaning of those types of verbal communication are usually only known to cultural insiders. Try to use geographically and culturally relevant examples—for example, referencing the World Cup instead of the World Series. Be aware of differences in communication between high- and low-context cultures. Note that people from low-context cultures may feel frustrated by the ambiguity of speakers from high-context cultures, while speakers from high-context cultures may feel overwhelmed or even insulted by the level of detail used by low-context communicators. The long history of family businesses doing business with family businesses in France means that communication at meetings and in business letters operates at a high context. Dates and prices may not be mentioned at all, which could be very frustrating for an American businessperson used to highly detailed negotiations. The high level of detail used by US Americans may be seen as simplistic or childish to audience members from high-context cultures. Include some materials in the native language or include a glossary of terms if you’re using specific or new vocabulary. Don’t assume that the audience needs it, but have it just in case.

Also be aware that different cultures interpret graphics differently. Two well-known cases of differing interpretations of graphics involve computer icons. First, the “trash” icon first used on Mac desktops doesn’t match what wastebaskets look like in many other countries. Second, the US-style “mailbox” used as an icon for many e-mail programs doesn’t match with the mail experiences of people in most other countries and has since been replaced by the much more universally recognizable envelope icon. Nonelectronic symbols also have different cultural meanings. People in the United States often note that they are pursuing the “blue ribbon” prize or standard in their business, which is the color ribbon used to designate second place in the United Kingdom.

“Getting Competent”

Handling Question-and-Answer Periods

Question-and-answer (Q&A) periods allow for important interaction between a speaker and his or her audience. Speakers should always be accountable for the content of their speech, whether informative or persuasive, and making yourself available for questions is a good way to demonstrate such accountability. Question-and-answer sessions can take many forms in many contexts. You may entertain questions after a classroom or conference presentation. Colleagues often have questions after a briefing or training. Your supervisor or customers may have questions after a demonstration. Some question-and-answer periods, like ones after sales pitches or after presentations to a supervisor, may be evaluative, meaning you are being judged in terms of your content and presentation. Others may be more information based, meaning that people ask follow-up questions or seek clarification or more detail. In any case, there are some guidelines that may help you more effectively handle question-and-answer periods (Toastmasters International, 2012; Morgan & Whitener, 2006).

Setting the stage for Q&A. If you know you will have a Q&A period after your presentation, alert your audience ahead of time. This will prompt them to take note of questions as they arise, so they don’t forget them by the end of the talk. Try to anticipate questions that the audience may have and try to proactively answer them in the presentation if possible; otherwise, be prepared to answer them at the end. At the end of your presentation, verbally and nonverbally indicate that the Q&A session is open. You can verbally invite questions and nonverbally shift your posture or position to indicate the change in format.

Reacting to questions. In evaluative or informative Q&A periods, speakers may feel defensive of their idea, position, or presentation style. Don’t let this show to the audience. Remember, accountability is a good thing as a speaker, and audience members usually ask pertinent and valid questions, even if you think they aren’t initially. Repeating a question after it is asked serves several functions. It ensures that people not around the person asking the question get to hear it. It allows speakers to start to formulate a response as they repeat the question. It also allows speakers to ensure they understood the question correctly by saying something like “What I hear you asking is…” Once you’ve repeated the question, respond to the person who posed the question, but also address the whole audience. It is awkward when a speaker just talks to one person. Be cautious not to overuse the statement “That’s a good question.” Saying that more than once or twice lessens its sincerity.

Keeping the Q&A on track. To help keep the Q&A period on track, tie a question to one of the main ideas from your presentation and make that connection explicit in your response. Having a clearly stated and repeated main idea for your presentation will help set useful parameters for which questions fall within the scope of the presentation and which do not. If someone poses a question that is irrelevant or off track, you can politely ask them to relate it to a main idea from the talk. If they can’t, you can offer to talk to them individually about their question after the session. Don’t engage with an irrelevant question, even if you know the answer. Answering one “off-track” question invites more, which veers the Q&A session further from the main idea.

Responding to multipart questions. People often ask more than one question at a time. As a speaker and audience member this can be frustrating. Countless times, I have seen a speaker only address the second question and then never get back to the first. By that point, the person who asked the question and the audience have also usually forgotten about the first part of the question. As a speaker, it is perfectly OK to take notes during a Q&A session. I personally take notes to help me address multipart questions. You can also verbally reiterate the question to make sure you know which parts need to be addressed, and then address the parts in order.

Managing “Uh-oh!” moments. If a person corrects something you said in error during your presentation, thank them for the correction. After the presentation, verify whether or not it was indeed a mistake, and if it was, make sure to correct your information so you don’t repeat the mistake in future talks. Admit when you don’t know the answer to a question. It’s better to admit that you do not know the answer than to try to fake your way through it. An audience member may also “correct” you with what you know is incorrect information. In such cases, do not get into a back-and-forth argument with the person; instead, note that the information you have is different and say you will look into it.

Concluding the Q&A session. Finally, take control of your presentation again toward the end of the Q&A session. Stop taking questions in time to provide a brief wrap-up of the questions, reiterate the main idea, thank the audience for their questions, and conclude the presentation. This helps provide a sense of closure and completeness for the presentation.

Which of these tips could you have applied to previous question-and-answer sessions that you have participated in to make them more effective?
Imagine you are giving a presentation on diversity in organizations and someone asks a question about affirmative action, which was not a part of your presentation. What could you say to the person?
In what situations in academic, professional, or personal contexts of your life might you be engaged in an evaluative Q&A session? An information-based Q&A session?

Common Business Presentations

Now you know how to consider your audience in terms of upward, downward, or horizontal communication. You also know some of the communication preferences of common career fields. Now we will turn our attention to some of the most frequent types of business presentations: briefings, reports, training, and meetings.

Briefings are short presentations that either update listeners about recent events or provide instructions for how to do something job related (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005). Briefings may occur as upward, downward, or horizontal communication. An industrial designer briefing project managers on the preliminary results of testing on a new product design is an example of upward briefing. A nurse who is the shift manager briefing an incoming shift of nurses on the events of the previous shift is an example of downward briefing. A representative from human resources briefing colleagues on how to use the new workplace identification badges is an example of horizontal briefing. Briefings that provide instructions like how to use a new identification badge are called technical briefings, and they are the most common type of workplace presentation (Toastmasters International, 2012). For technical briefings, consider whether your audience is composed of insiders, outsiders, or a mixture of people different levels of familiarity with the function, operation, and/or specifications of the focus of the briefing. As we have already discussed, technical speaking requires an ability to translate unfamiliar or complex information into content that is understandable and manageable for others.

Technical briefings, which explain how something functions or works, are the most common type of workplace presentations.

Shamim Mohamed – Debrief – CC BY-SA 2.0.

As the name suggests, briefings are brief —usually two or three minutes. Since they are content focused, they do not require formal speech organization, complete with introduction and conclusion. Briefings are often delivered as a series of bullet points, organized topically or chronologically. The content of a briefing is usually a summary of information or a series of distilled facts, so there are rarely elements of persuasion in a briefing or much supporting information. A speaker may use simple visual aids, like an object or even a one-page handout, but more complex visual aids are usually not appropriate. In terms of delivery, briefings should be organized. Since they are usually delivered under time constraints and contain important information, brief notes and extemporaneous delivery are effective (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005).

There are numerous types of reports. The line between a briefing and short oral report is fuzzy, but in general a report is a more substantial presentation on the progress or status of a task. Reports can focus on the past, present, or future. Reports on past events may result from some type of investigation. For example, a company may be interested in finding the cause of a 15 percent decline in revenue for a branch office. Investigative reports are also focused on past events and may include a follow-up on a customer or employee complaint.

Reports on the present are often status or progress reports. Various departments or teams that make up an organization, or committees that make up a governing board, are likely to give status reports. Status reports may focus on a specific project or task or simply report on the regular functioning of a group.

Components of a Status Report (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005)

State the group or committee’s task or purpose.
Describe the current status, including work done by the group and/or individuals and the methods used.
Report on obstacles encountered and efforts to overcome them
Describe the next goal or milestone of the group and offer concrete action steps and a timeline for achieving the goal.

Final reports are presented at the conclusion of a task and are similar to a progress report but include a discussion and analysis of the results of an effort. While some progress reports may only be delivered verbally, with no written component, a final report almost always has an associated written document. The written final report usually contains much more detail than is included in the oral final report, and this detail is referenced for audience members to consult if they desire more information (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005).

A common future-focused report is the feasibility report , which explores potential actions or steps and then makes recommendations for future action based on methodical evaluation. The purpose of these reports is basically to determine if an action or step is a good idea for an organization. Facebook made a much-discussed move to go public in 2012, a decision that was no doubt made after analyzing many feasibility reports.

Components of a Feasibility Report (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005)

Introduction to a problem or situation and its potential consequences
Overview of the standards used for evaluating potential courses of action
Overview of process used to identify and evaluate courses of action
Details of potential courses of action
Evaluation of the potential courses of action
Recommendation of best course of action

People in supervisory or leadership positions often provide training , which includes presentations that prepare new employees for their jobs or provide instruction or development opportunities for existing employees. While some training is conducted by inside and outside consultants, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics notes that about 75 percent of training is delivered informally while on the job (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005). As the training and development field expands, this informal training is likely to be replaced by more formalized training delivered by training professionals, many of whom will be employees of the company who have been certified to train specific areas. Organizations are investing more time and money in training because they recognize the value in having well-trained employees and then regularly adding to that training with continued development opportunities. Common focuses of training include the following:

Compliance with company policies. Includes training and orienting new hires and ongoing training for existing employees related to new or changing company policies.
Changing workplace environments. Diversity training and cross-cultural training for international business.
Compliance with legal policies. Sexual harassment, equal employment, Americans with Disabilities Act, and ethics training.
Technical training. Instructions for software, hardware, and machinery.

Companies are also investing money in training for recent college graduates who have degrees but lack the technical training needed to do a specific job. This upfront investment pays off in many situations, as this type of standardized training in field-specific communication skills and technology can lead to increased productivity.

Corporate trainers prepare new employees for their jobs and provide development opportunities for existing employees.

Louisiana GOHSEP – Employees Attend Training Classes – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Trainers require specific skills and an ability to adapt to adult learners (Ray, 1993). Important training skills include technical skills specific to a discipline, interpersonal skills, organizational skills, and critical thinking skills. Trainers must also be able to adapt to adult learners, who may have more experience than the trainer. Training formats usually include a mixture of information presentation formats such as minilecture and discussion as well as experiential opportunities for trainees to demonstrate competence such as role-play, simulation, and case-study analysis and application. Trainers should remember that adult learners learn best by doing, have previous experience that trainers can and should draw on, have different motivations for learning than typical students, and have more competing thoughts and distractions. Adult learners often want information distilled down to the “bottom line”; demonstrating how content is relevant to a specific part of their work duties or personal success is important.

Steps in Developing a Training Curriculum (Beebe, Mottet, & Roach, 2004)

Do background research based on literature on and observations of the training context you will be in.
Conduct a needs assessment to see what sort of training is desired/needed.
Develop training objectives based on research, observations, and needs assessment. Objectives should be observable, measurable, attainable, and specific.
Develop content that connects to the needs assessment.
Determine the time frame for training; make the training as efficient as possible.
Determine methods for delivering content that connect with objectives developed earlier.
Select and/or create training materials.
Create a participant’s guide that contains each activity and module of the training.
Include the following for each training activity: objectives, training content, time frame, method, and materials needed.
Test the training plan on a focus group or with experts in the field to evaluate and revise if necessary.

Over eleven million meetings are held each day in the United States, so it is likely that you will attend and lead meetings during your career. Why do we have meetings? The fundamental reason is to get a group of people with different experiences and viewpoints together to share their knowledge and/or solve a problem. Despite their frequency and our familiarity with them, meetings are often criticized for being worthless, a waste of time, and unnecessary. Before you call a meeting, ask yourself if it is necessary, since some issues are better resolved through a phone call, an e-mail, or a series of one-on-one meetings. Ask the following questions to help make sure the meeting is necessary: What is the goal of the meeting? What would be the consequences of not having it? How will I judge whether the meeting was successful or not? (Jay, 1999)

Meetings are important at the early stages of completing a task, as they help define a work team since the members share a space and interact with each other. Subsequent meetings should be called when people need to pool knowledge, refine ideas, consider new information, or deliberate over a decision. Most meetings are committee size, which ranges from three to ten people. The frequency of the meeting will help determine how the meeting should be run. Groups that meet daily will develop a higher level of cohesion and be able to work through an agenda quickly with little review. Most groups meet less frequently, so there typically needs to be a structured meeting agenda that includes informational items, old business, and new business.

In determining the meeting agenda, define the objectives for various items. Some items will be informative, meaning they transmit information and don’t require a decision or an action. Other items will be constructive, in that they require something new to be devised or decided, such as determining a new policy or procedure. Once a new policy or procedure has been determined, a group must decide on the executive components of their decision, such as how it will be implemented and who will have responsibilities in the process. As the items progress from informational, to constructive, to executive, the amount of time required for each item increases, which will have an effect on the planning of the agenda (Jay, 1999).

After completing the agenda, continue to plan for the meeting by providing attendees with the agenda and any important supporting or supplementary materials such as meeting minutes or reports ahead of time. Consult with people who will attend a meeting beforehand to see if they have any questions about the meeting and to remind them to review the materials. You can also give people a “heads up” about any items for discussion that may be lengthy or controversial. Make sure the meeting room can accommodate the number of attendees and arrange the seating to a suitable structure, typically one where everyone can see each other. A meeting leader may also want to divide items up as “for information,” “for discussion,” or “for decision.” Start the meeting by sharing the objective(s) that you determined in your planning. This will help hold you and the other attendees accountable and give you something to assess to determine the value of the meeting.

People’s attention spans wane after the first twenty minutes of a meeting, so it may be useful to put items that warrant the most attention early on the agenda. It is also a good idea to put items that the group can agree on and will unify around before more controversial items on which the group may be divided. Anything presented at the meeting that wasn’t circulated ahead of time should be brief, so people aren’t spending the meeting reading through documents. To help expedite the agenda, put the length of time you think will be needed for each item or category of items on the agenda. It is important to know when to move from one item to the next. Sometimes people continue to talk even after agreement has been reached, which is usually a waste of time. You want to manage the communication within the meeting but still encourage people to speak up and share ideas. Some people take a more hands-on approach to managing the conversation than others. As the president of the graduate student body, I attended a few board of trustees meetings at my university. The chairperson of the committee had a small bell that she would ring when people got off track, engaged in personal conversations, or were being disruptive to the order of the group.

At the end of the meeting make sure to recap what was accomplished. Return to the objective you shared at the beginning and assess whether or not you accomplished it. If people feel like they get somewhere during a meeting, they will think more positively about the next one. Compile the meeting minutes in a timely fashion, within a few days and no more than a week after the meeting (Jay, 1999).

Tips for Running Effective Meetings

Distribute an agenda to attendees two to three days in advance of the meeting.
Divide items up on the agenda into “for information,” “for discussion,” and “for decision.”
Put items that warrant close attention early on the agenda.
Since senior attendees’ comments may influence or limit junior people’s comments, ask for comments from junior attendees first.
People sometimes continue talking even after agreement has been reached, so it’s important to know when to move on to the next item in the agenda.
At the end of a meeting, recap what was accomplished and set goals for the next meeting.
Compile meeting minutes within forty-eight hours and distribute them to the attendees.

Key Takeaways

What counts as being a good communicator in one business context doesn’t in another, so being able to adapt to various business settings and audiences will help you be more successful in your career.
Upward business communication involves communicating messages up the organizational hierarchy. This type of communication is usually the most lacking in organizations. However, since oral presentations are a “high-visibility” activity, taking advantage of these opportunities can help you get noticed by bosses and, if done well, can move you up the organizational ladder. Present information succinctly in an executive summary format, building in repetition of main ideas in the oral delivery that aren’t necessary for the written version. Don’t just focus on the boss if there are other people present, but do connect to the vision and mission of the organization, since most managers and executives have a “big picture” view of the organization.
Horizontal communication is communication among colleagues on the same level within an organizational hierarchy. This type of communication helps coordinate tasks and lets people from various parts of an organization get a better idea of how the whole organization functions. Many workplaces are becoming more collaborative and team oriented, but make sure you share credit for ideas and work accomplished collaboratively so as not to offend a colleague.
Downward communication includes messages traveling down the organizational hierarchy. These messages usually focus on giving instructions, explaining company policies, or providing feedback. As a supervisor, make sure to encourage employees to ask questions following a presentation. Good information flow helps prevent employee errors and misunderstandings, which saves money.
Initial communication with clients, customers, or funding sources is usually persuasive in nature, as you will be trying to secure their business. Later communication may be more informative status reports. Connect your message to their needs rather than focusing on what you offer. Use persuasive strategies like positive motivation, and always have a “money slide” prepared that gets across the essence of what you offer in one attractive message.
When adapting business communication to intercultural contexts, take a “tools not rules” approach that focuses on broad and adaptable intercultural communication competence.

There are various types of business presentations for which a speaker should be prepared:

Briefings are short, two- to three-minute “how-to” or “update” presentations that are similar to factual bullet points.
Reports can be past, present, or future focused and include status, final, and feasibility reports.
Trainings are informal or formal presentations that help get new employees ready for their jobs and keep existing employees informed about changing policies, workplace climates, and legal issues.
To have an effective meeting, first make sure it is necessary to have, then set a solid foundation by distributing an agenda in advance, manage the flow of communication during the meeting, and take note of accomplishments to promote a positive view of future meetings.
Identify a recent instance when you engaged in upward, horizontal, downward, or intercultural communication in a business setting. Analyze that communication encounter based on the information in the corresponding section of this chapter. What was done well and what could have been improved?
Prepare a briefing presentation on how to prepare a briefing. Make sure to follow the suggestions in the chapter.
Think of a time when you received training in a business or academic setting. Was the communication of the trainer effective? Why or why not?

Adler, R. B. and Jeanne Marquardt Elmhorst, Communicating at Work: Principles and Practices for Businesses and the Professions , 8th ed. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 2005), 15.

Bartolome, F., “Nobody Trusts the Boss Completely—Now What?” in Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), 92.

Beebe, S. A., Timothy A. Mottet, and K. David Roach, Training and Development: Enhancing Communication and Leadership Skills (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2004).

Dannels, D. P., “Time to Speak Up: A Theoretical Framework of Situated Pedagogy and Practice for Communication across the Curriculum,” Communication Education 50, no. 2 (2001): 144.

Jay, A., “How to Run a Meeting,” in Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), 34.

Larkin, T. J. and Sandar Larkin, “Reaching and Changing Frontline Employees,” in Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), 152.

McCaskey, M. B., “The Hidden Messages Managers Send,” in Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), 128.

Morgan, S. and Barrett Whitener, Speaking about Science: A Manual for Creating Clear Presentations (New York, NY: Cambridge, 2006), 18.

Nichols, R. G. and Leonard A. Stevens, “Listening to People,” in Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), 14–15.

Ray, R. L., “Introduction: The Academic as Corporate Consultant,” in Bridging Both Worlds: The Communication Consultant in Corporate America , ed. Rebecca L. Ray (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993), 6–8.

Thrush, E. A., “Bridging the Gaps: Technical Communication in an International and Multicultural Society,” Technical Communication Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1993): 275–79.

Toastmasters International, “Proposals and Pitches” accessed March 17, 2012, http://www.toastmasters.org/MainMenuCategories/FreeResources/NeedHelpGivingaSpeech/BusinessPresentations/ProposalsandPitches.aspx

Ulijn, J., Dan O’Hair, Matthieu Weggeman, Gerald Ledlow, and H. Thomas Hall, “Innovation, Corporate Strategy, and Cultural Context: What Is the Mission for International Business Communication?” Journal of Business Communication 37 (2000): 301.

Victor, D., “Cross-Cultural Communication” in Bridging Both Worlds: The Communication Consultant in Corporate America , ed. Rebecca L. Ray (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993), 113.

Weinholdt, R., “Taking the Trauma Out of the Talk,” The Information Management Journal 40, no. 6 (2006): 62.

Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies. Provided by : University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing edition, 2016. This edition adapted from a work originally produced in 2013 by a publisher who has requested that it not receive attribution.. Located at : https://open.lib.umn.edu/communication/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Communication in the Workplace

Sep 03, 2014

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Communication in the Workplace. Good communication is a key part of success in the workplace. Without communication skills we are unable to let others know what we think, feel, or want to accomplish. We are unable to build partnerships, motivate others, or resolve conflict. .

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Presentation Transcript

Good communication is a key part of success in the workplace.

Without communication skills we are unable to let others know what we think, feel, or want to accomplish. We are unable to build partnerships, motivate others, or resolve conflict.

What is a workplace? Dictionary definition - A place, such as an office or factory, where people are employed. MLVR-OCTOBER 24, 2008

Administration office Accounting office Human Resources Office Bookstore Maintenance office Engineering office General Services Clinic Registrar Security Guard office Student Services Discipline office Campus Ministry office Others What is our workplace?

Communication • The exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior. • The art and technique of using words effectively to impart information or ideas. • Acceptable communication differs from company to company, but many aspects are universal.

Tips to help us communicate effectively in the workplace Listen - When you listen to others attentively it makes them feel good. It also makes for a deeper and more positive connection with others. In turn, you form an understanding and they will listen to you when it’s your turn to speak. Poor listening happens often and resultsin misunderstandings andmiscommunications.

ACTIVITY • HOW GOOD A LISTENER ARE YOU?

A well-liked college teacher had just completed making up the final examinations and had turned off the lights in the office. Just then a tall, dark, broad figure appeared and demanded the examination. The professor opened the drawer. Everything in the drawer was picked up and the individual ran down the corridor. The Dean was notified immediately.

Answer the Questions • 1. The thief was tall, dark, and broad. • 2. The professor turned off the lights. • 3. A tall figure demanded the examination. • 4. The examination was picked up by someone • 5. The examination was picked up by the professor.

Answer True or False • 6. A tall, dark figure appeared after the professor • turned off the lights in the office. • 7. The man who opened the drawer was the professor. • 8. The professor ran down the corridor. • 9. The drawer was never actually opened. • 10. In this report three persons are referred to.

T T T T F 6. F 7. T 8. F 9. F 10. T ANSWERS

INTERPRETATION OF SCORES • 8PTS – 10 PTS - ACTIVE LISTENER • 5 PTS- 7 PTS – AVERAGE • BELOW 5 PTS – NEEDS TO BE MORE ATTENTIVE. • 1 POINT PER CORRECT ANSWER

WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE? • Have Intention - Ask yourself what your intention is before starting a project, going to a meeting, or speaking to someone. • You can also ask others what their intentionsare in similar situations. Knowing your intention will help you be more conscious of what you’re doing or saying. • which means you’ll be able to be moreeffective and skillful.

Speak Clearly - Take a deepbreath and remain positive whentalking to people. Try to cut outthe “ums,” “uh-hmms” and “ahhs;”these make it difficult for peopleto understand what you’re tryingto communicate. Try to keep yourvoice steady and don’t talk tooquickly or too quietly. Be confident in what you’re sayingand others will feel yourconfidence too. SPEAK CLEARLY

BE GENUINE • Be Genuine - Being genuine can includespeaking honestly, expressing excitementor sadness when you feel like it, and beingfriendly. • There is nothing wrong withsaying, “no, I don’t really agree with that,”or “you know, I think you’ve changed mymind!” However, don’t be rude. “I wasjust being honest” is not a good excusefor being harsh. • Being genuine builds yourconfidence.

Be Receptive • Be open to whatothers are saying or offering. • Often, people restrict the flow ofideas or communication becausethey’re making too manyassumptions or are being too quickto judge and criticize.

CommunicationFlow

Downward communication, Upward communication, Lateral communication, and the Grapevine.

Downward Workplace Communication: Enabling • Let's focus first on downward communication in the workplace, and a couple of its important characteristics. Consider these common, downward forms of workplace communication: • A manager explains a task to an employee • A customer gives an order to a supplier • Shareholders instruct management.

Enabling • These forms have more than direction in common. Each one also provides enabling information in the workplace. When a manager instructs an employee, she enables the employee to do his job, and makes it possible for him to earn a living by doing something that has value for the employer. • Another example: senior management finds out from shareholders, or the board of directors, how owners want to apply the money they've invested.

And, as information moves downward in the workplace, it grows increasingly detailed. Make a Budget report Make a Budget report for the month to include the following Make sure the report includes the exact amount and the qty.

All organizations of more than one person must use workplace communication in one way or another. • One person must give another instructions before any activity can occur.

At each stage in the downward flow of communication, people in the organization receive information to help them do their jobs. And, at each stage the information become less abstract, more specific, and more detailed.

Upward Communication: Compliance • A second major flow of communication is upward, from employee to supervisor, supervisor to department head, department head to vice president, and so on.

Less detail • Now, turning to upward communication, we know that the staff at the registrar or accounting department will report back to the section head on their number of enrolees. • The college account, in turn, will report, in less detail, to the VPAA about enrollment figures. • Finally, VPAA will report to the President on how well the College is doing for SY 2008-2009.

Lateral communication: Coordination • Now, think of the information that flows back and forth between you and your peers, whether you're a front-line worker, a manager, or a member of the board of directors. This is lateral communication.

Characteristics • First, no superior/subordinate relationship exists here; it's strictly a case of two people with roughly equal amounts of power and prestige. That makes this form of communication voluntary and discretionary. • Yes, the boss may tell us to communicate with each other, but unless we both want to do it, we're not going to exchange much information of value.

That takes us to the second aspect, the idea of reciprocating. • The quality and quantity of information we provide to our peers generally reflects what we get back from them. I may provide good information to you when we start working together, but I won't continue to provide it unless you reciprocate in kind.

Team Communication • Team communication is a special form of lateral communication, and an essential one. • For teamwork in the workplace, members must not only communicate with each other, but will often need to communicate with peers outside their immediate group. • Leaders will need to keep these communication flows in mind, as well as the upward and downward flows that connect them directly to their co-employees. • Communication for team building and just plain teamwork and is many-faceted and requires consistent attention.

The Grapevine: Filling the Gaps • It’s Tuesday morning, and John down the hall just emptied out his desk and left the building. Apparently for good. • Everyone wants an answer to the same question: "Why?" If there's no official answer, and sometimes even if there is one, the people around him begin speculating about possible reasons. • This is a communication channel that no one owns and no one controls. And while we might complain about gossips and busybodies, we all use it sooner or later.

It has a function • Despite its many faults, though, the grapevine does have a place, a function, in all organizations. It fills in gaps left behind by conventional and official communication. • As I've said, downward communication delivers enabling information from superior to subordinate, while upward communication involves compliance information reported back to the superior by the subordinate. And, lateral communication takes place between peers, helping us coordinate with each other.

New tools • Traditionally, the grapevine revolved around mouth-to-mouth communication, with only occasional bits of information written down or put on paper. • But, new technologies mean change. The Internet opened up all kinds of new opportunities for unofficial communication. Email, it's true, may be monitored, but that's easily circumvented. For example, free, anonymous email accounts offered all over the Net.

Then, there are photocopiers and fax machines, both of which can be used to surreptitiously maintain the grapevine. And how about cell phones, which provide an alternate means of mouth-to-mouth communication, even when you're at the office. • While technologies enabling the grapevine may change, the same human traits continue to fuel this communication channel. They include our natural curiosity and our desire to influence the way others think and behave. Don't forget, either, about the need to get even or to belittle, which fuel many rumors that course through grapevines.

Speed • Where downward, upward, and lateral communication are structured and flow formally through specific channels, the grapevine goes through multiple channels and even multiple versions.

Communication Flow • downward, or enabling, communication that moves instructions and other directive information down or through a hierarchy • upward, or compliance, communication that provides feedback to the people who originate downward communication • lateral, or coordinating, communication that moves between peers to maintain or improve operational efficiency • the grapevine, which fills in gaps in official communication and provides answers to unaddressed questions.

Why is effective communication essential in the workplace? • Communication: we are constantly bombarded by it. It may be in the form of spoken or written words, pictures, gestures, symbols and (for an interesting few) telepathic messages from a variety of intriguing sources. But in the workplace, effective communication is essential to our progress and well being.

What is your communicating style? • Good communication skills require a high level of self-awareness. Understanding your personal style of communicating will go a long way toward helping you to create good and lasting impressions on others

By becoming more aware of how others perceive you, you can adapt more readily to their styles of communicating.

Three basic communication styles: • Aggressive • Passive • Assertive

Beliefs "Everyone should be like me." "I am never wrong." "I've got rights, but you don't." Communication Style Close minded Poor listener Has difficulty seeing the other person's point of view Interrupts Monopolizing Elements of the Aggressive Style

Characteristics Achieves goals, often at others' expense Domineering, bullying Patronizing Condescending, sarcastic Behavior Puts others down Doesn't ever think they are wrong Bossy Moves into people's space, overpowers Jumps on others, pushes people around Know-it-all attitude Doesn't show appreciation

Nonverbal Cues Points, shakes finger Frowns Squints eyes critically Glares Stares Rigid posture Critical, loud, yelling tone of voice Fast, clipped speech Verbal Cues "You must (should, ought better)." "Don't ask why. Just do it." Verbal abuse Confrontation and Problem Solving Must win arguments, threatens, attacks Operates from win/lose position

Feelings Felt Anger Hostility Frustration Impatience Effects Provokes counteraggression, alienation from others, ill health Wastes time and energy oversupervising others Pays high price in human relationships Fosters resistance, defiance, sabotaging, striking back, forming alliances, lying, covering up Forces compliance with resentment

Elements of the Passive Style • Beliefs • "Don't express your true feelings." • "Don't make waves." • "Don't disagree." • "Others have more rights than I do." • Communication Style • Indirect • Always agrees • Doesn't speak up - Hesitant

Characteristics • Apologetic, self-conscious • Trusts others, but not self • Doesn't express own wants and feelings • Allows others to make decisions for self • Doesn't get what he or she wants • Behaviors • Sighs a lot • Tries to sit on both sides of the fence to avoid conflict • Clams up when feeling treated unfairly • Asks permission unnecessarily • Complains instead of taking action • Lets others make choices • Has difficulty implementing plans • Self-effacing

Nonverbal Cues • Fidgets • Nods head often; comes across as pleading • Lack of facial animation • Smiles and nods in agreement • Downcast eyes • Slumped posture • Low volume, meek • Up talk • Fast, when anxious; slow, hesitant, when doubtful

Verbal Cues • "You should do it." • "You have more experience than I do." • "I can't......" • "This is probably wrong, but..." • "I'll try..." • Monotone, low energy

Confrontation and Problem Solving • Avoids, ignores, leaves, postpones • Withdraws, is sullen and silent • Agrees externally, while disagreeing internally • Expends energy to avoid conflicts that are anxiety provoking • Spends too much time asking for advice, supervision • Agrees too often

Feelings Felt • Powerlessness • Wonders why doesn't receive credit for good work • Chalks lack of recognition to others' inabilities • Effects • Gives up being him or herself • Builds dependency relationships • Doesn't know where he or she stands • Slowly loses self esteemPromotes others' causes • Is not well-liked

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24 Oral Presentations

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. This is usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a power point. Students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.

For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, entertain, persuade the audience, or educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on their capacity to speak and deliver relevant information within a set timeframe. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

Breathe and remember that everyone gets nervous when speaking in public. You are in control. You’ve got this!
Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?

Group Presentation

All of the above applies, however you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
Also consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. This will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group, however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining power point slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of power point slides) for the whole group. Take turns presenting information and ideas.
Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
Rehearse as a group, more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.
For further information on working as a group see:

Working as a group – my.UQ – University of Queensland

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics, do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down as demonstrated in Chapter 17 Breaking Down an Assignment. Where it differs from writing an essay is that the information in the written speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept or new information you write, think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a power point slide. After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the power point. Your presentation skills are being evaluated; this may include a small percentage for the actual visual aid. This is also why it is important that EVERYONE has a turn at speaking during the presentation, as each person receives their own individual grade.

Using Visual Aids

A whole chapter could be written about the visual aids alone, therefore I will simply refer to the key points as noted by my.UQ

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point).
Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the power point file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

This is a general guide. The specific requirements for your course may be different. Make sure you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive power point though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

Rehearse with the power point.
Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
Don’t let the power point just be something happening in the background while you speak.
Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication are the ways that we communicate without speaking. Many people are already aware of this, however here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Fake it until you make it.

Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence.
Move! When you’re glued to one spot as a presenter, you’re not perceived as either confident or dynamic. Use the available space effectively, though do not exaggerate your natural movements so you look ridiculous.
If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to constantly wave them around. They detract from your message. Occasional gestures are fine.
Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, for example, constantly touching or ‘finger-combing’ your hair, rubbing your face.
Avoid ‘voice fidgets’ also. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
Avoid distractions. No phone turned on. Water available but off to one side.
Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members; this can be intimidating.
Have a cheerful demeaner. You do not need to grin like a Cheshire cat throughout the presentation, yet your facial expression should be relaxed and welcoming.
Maintain an engaging TONE in your voice. Sometimes it’s not what you’re saying that is putting your audience to sleep, it’s your monotonous tone. Vary your tone and pace.
Don’t read your presentation – PRESENT it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
Lastly, make good eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

communication of thought by word

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Oral Communication Skills in the Workplace

In the professional world, communication matters to the core and oral communication in the work place are vital for success of any organization. If employees have the ability to communicate effectively, there can be a tremendous scope of success.

Glance through any job portal and you will find that “excellent written and oral communication skills” are one of the vital attributes that all employers look for in their prospective employees. Oral communication is the art of using speech to convey information, thoughts and feelings to others and it is the key to improve interpersonal and professional relationships.

Importance of Oral Communication Skills in the Workplace

Human beings are blessed with the faculty of speech and that is an incredible gift, to say the least. As the 21st century has been adjudged to be an era of communication, innovative technologies have revolutionized the business world. This is the ‘instant world’, that epitomizes dynamism. The way we convey our thoughts plays a major role in building relationships. If you’re impolite, terse and reckless in speaking, your words, no matter how meaningful, won’t achieve their purpose.

Moreover, experts in body language and communication related studies point out a fact that the tone, diction, pronunciation and speed of our talking matters a lot in daily dealings with people. In work place, there are employees of diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. This makes team working a difficult task but guided by the ability to work coherently and with a clear understanding of the task to be achieved, all members work towards the same objective. Misunderstandings, conflicts and differences in opinions are easily managed when there is a lucid flow of communication between team members.

With proper communication, a bonding and trust builds amongst the employees thereby promoting excellent working conditions. An atmosphere of support and cooperation is fostered by properly conveying expectations of the management team to the employees and vice-versa. If employees are given the opportunity to express their suggestions, viewpoints and ideas, they feel engaged in shaping the future of the company.

Oral communication also plays a major role in negotiations, mergers & acquisitions and meetings. In almost every business set up, individuals are required to make presentations and address them in front of CEOs and management officers. All this requires a sharp and accurate understanding of the way to talk and present our thoughts. Both forms of oral communication – listening and speaking are important for learning things around us.

Improving Oral Communication

How to improve oral communication? Well, there is no one fixed method to develop communication skills. A combination of variety of methods work best in helping people to get more command on their oral communication skills. In the business world, individuals are expected to be confident about their beliefs, ideas and convictions. Hence, they must include words like ‘In my opinion’, ‘as far as I know’, I believe that’ so that their words are more emphatic and reflect self analysis. While improving skills on oral communication skills, people in a workplace must learn the art of listening. It is said that to speak well, one must be a great listener. In the professional world, poor listening skills can cost an individual a fortune as some major pointers from the other person’s perspective can be missed. This is true even in management meetings and seminars.

Employees who’re active listeners can grasp the main points being discussed in a meeting or a seminar, in a more profound way. Similarly, active listening helps individuals to understand the other person in a more enhanced way. Besides being a good listener, one must also have a positive body language during conversations. A person with a smiling face and positive attitude is able to raise the spirits of everyone around him. On the other hand, an individual with a negative attitude makes the conversation dull and depressing. When we’re talking to someone, we must give the other person an opportunity to talk to as it improves our listening ability. Many people talk too fast during conversations that makes it a difficult task to figure out about what the person is saying.

Communication is an art and it can be improved by working on it consistently. Since it is not an overnight work, one needs to learn it by observing people who’re good at it. It is a misconception that effective oral communication skills is about being verbose or to use scholarly language while talking. Oral communication skills, in fact, are representation of simplicity and detail!

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How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation
Delivery. It is important to dress appropriately, stand up straight, and project your voice towards the back of the room. Practise using a microphone, or any other presentation aids, in advance. If you don't have your own presenting style, think of the style of inspirational scientific speakers you have seen and imitate it.
What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation
Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired ...
Oral Presentation at the Workplace
An oral presentation in the workplace is an employee's chance to show off the work she has been doing, and prove her value to the company. Whether an employee is presenting to a department or ...
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Oral Presentations. A common assignment in technical writing courses—not to mention in the workplace—is to prepare and deliver an oral presentation, a task most of us would be happy to avoid. However, while employers look for coursework and experience in preparing written documents, they also look for experience in oral presentations as well.
What Are Effective Presentation Skills (and How to Improve Them)
Presentation skills are the abilities and qualities necessary for creating and delivering a compelling presentation that effectively communicates information and ideas. They encompass what you say, how you structure it, and the materials you include to support what you say, such as slides, videos, or images. You'll make presentations at various ...
12 tips for effective communication in the workplace
7. Make sure you're speaking to the right person. Effective workplace communication is as much about who you're talking to as it is about what you're saying. Poor communication often occurs when you're talking to the wrong people or trying to share information in the wrong setting.
PDF Oral Presentations
Oral presentations typically involve three important steps: 1) planning, 2) practicing, and 3) presenting. 1. Planning Oral presentations require a good deal of planning. Scholars estimate that approximately 50% of all mistakes in an oral presentation actually occur in the planning stage (or rather, lack of a planning stage). Make sure to ...
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Communication skills extend beyond how well you can illustrate your point; many people forget that the other half of communication is active listening. Strong communicators are active listeners. According to Insider, a key reminder to improve communication skills is not to monopolize the conversation. Let others speak and ask follow-up ...
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Transcript. Delivering effective oral presentations involves three components: what you say ( verbal ), how you say it with your voice ( vocal ), and everything the audience can see about you ...
Chapter 3: Oral Presentations
The Purpose of an Oral Presentation. Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, to entertain, to persuade the audience, or to educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria.
Top 10 Oral Presentation Strategies For Effective Communication
3. Organize in Parts. An effective presentation is prepared by dividing it into a few parts. It is observed that most effective presentations contain two to three main parts. The presenter should tell the audience what these parts are, before or during the presentation. It may lead to a win. 4. Go Through.
Effective Oral Presentation Skills for Workplace Success
This document discusses effective oral presentation skills in the workplace. It identifies 8 key areas that are important for effective workplace presentations: 1) knowing your audience, 2) planning your presentation, 3) making it interesting, 4) dressing appropriately, 5) showing enthusiasm, 6) being organized, 7) discussing important issues, and 8) managing nerves. Mastering these skills can ...
12.3 Speaking in Business Settings
Speaking to Executives/Supervisors. Upward communication includes speeches, proposals, or briefings that are directed at audience members who hold higher positions in the organizational hierarchy than the sender. Upward communication is usually the most lacking within an organization, so it is important to take advantage of the opportunity and use it to your advantage (Nichols & Stevens, 1999).
What is oral communication and why is it important?
Oral communication is the transference of information via speech. Despite technologies that enable people to convey written messages almost instantaneously, verbal communication remains the chief mode of communication in today's business environment. From the interview room to the boardroom, verbal communication persuades, cajoles and convinces.
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5 Effective Communication and Oral Presentation in Workplace. Workplace Communication. Workplace communication is the process of exchanging information, both verbal and non-verbal, within an organization. There are many means of communication.
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Effective Oral Presentation in a Workplace - Free download as Powerpoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or view presentation slides online. Effective Oral Presentation in a Workplace
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Presentation Transcript. Communication in the Workplace. Good communication is a key part of success in the workplace. Without communication skills we are unable to let others know what we think, feel, or want to accomplish. We are unable to build partnerships, motivate others, or resolve conflict.
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Subject: Purposive Communication (Synchronous Session) Level: Tertiary level- 1st year students. Objectives: By the end of the lesson, the students will be able to: 1. Explain the qualities and steps of being an effective presenter; Identify the ethics in oral presentation; Evaluate an oral presentation; workplace.
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Oral Communication Skills in the Workplace
Oral communication also plays a major role in negotiations, mergers & acquisitions and meetings. In almost every business set up, individuals are required to make presentations and address them in front of CEOs and management officers. All this requires a sharp and accurate understanding of the way to talk and present our thoughts.
Communication for Work Purpose 4
Communication for Work Purposes. Oral Presentation in the Workplace. In your previous lesson on public speaking, you have learned the 3 different purposes (to inform, to persuade and to entertain) and the modes (manuscript, memorized, impromptu and extemporaneous) of delivering a speech.
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The Oral Presentation General Principles of Effective Communication. Know your purpose in communicating. Know your audience. Know your topic. Adjust your speech/writing style to the context of the situation. Work on the feedback given you. Principles of Effective Oral Communication. Be clear with your purpose. Be complete with the message you ...

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How to prepare and deliver an effective oral presentation

Preparation

What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

Partner Center

Oral Presentation at the Workplace

How to Coach an Employee to Communicate Better

Significance

Identification

Considerations

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12 tips for effective communication in the workplace

What is effective communication?

What does “workplace communication” mean?

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What makes communication effective?

Benefits of effective communication in the workplace

7 tips for more effective communication in the workplace

1. Know where to communicate—and about what

2. Build collaboration skills

3. Talk face-to-face when you can

4. Watch your body language and tone of voice

5. Prioritize two-way communication

6. Stick to facts, not stories

7. Make sure you’re speaking to the right person

5 tips to build effective communication skills in the workplace

1. Address any underlying changes

2. Frequently ask for feedback

3. Understand team communication styles

4. Make time for team building or icebreakers

5. Set the tone

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Top 10 Oral Presentation Strategies For Effective Communication

Oral Presentation Strategies

1. Homework

2. Try the Presentation

3. Organize in Parts