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   When The Audience Is Hostile  

            Barry was preparing a controversial presentation to the Board of his company. In a nutshell, he was advocating that the company take a completely new direction with one of its products.  Though Barry had a few supporters for this daring proposition, he knew the majority of the Board regarded his views as  

            As V. P. of Development it was his job to present new and better ways of doing things, however he faced heavy opposition from the senior "tried and true" advocates that he had to convince.  How to show them that his new way was better without their jumping to angry conclusions or simply refusing to listen?

            What should you do when you know your audience is hostile?  

            Preparing to face a group that doesn't agree with you is both a challenge and an advantage.  The advantage is you know what to expect.  You know they're going to try to trip you up.  They may get loud, angry, defensive.  They're going to poke holes in your arguments and defy you to convince them.  However, whether or not they agree with you is not your primary concern. Your job is to get your points across in spite of their unwillingness to listen.  The challenge is to get them to really hear you.

            Obviously, speaking to a hostile audience is going to take deeper, more thorough and wider preparation but here, too, you have an advantage.  Knowing that you'll have to defend yourself against both reasonable and unreasonable objections, an amazing thing happens.  Your  mind works harder, your thinking gets sharper and more focused.  It's a lot like gearing yourself up for running a horse race: you need to sharpen your skills, get yourself in shape, prepare your game plan and be ready for surprises.  And you have to set yourself up to win.

            A winning mindset will carry you forward like the strongest horse in the field.  You have a job to do.  Like a jockey's job is to win the race, your job is to win their attention, to be heard, to get the audience to put aside the objections they walked in with long enough to think about what you're actually saying.  You're a winner when they stop trying to out-talk you and instead start to listen. 

            They won't make it easy.  They'll do everything they can to intimidate you:  ridicule you, put you down, out-shout you, insinuate sarcastically that you're stupid and unprepared for your job and who the heck do you think you are?  Be prepared for all of it. Take it seriously, but not personally. There's a difference.

            Take it seriously because their objections should be ones you've prepared for in advance, and you have answers to dilute them.  Part of your deep preparation is to figure out every criticism they could possibly throw at you and have an answer for it.

            Always remember that their objections are not personal, even if they sound like they are.  They're not objecting to you, they're objecting to what you're saying.  The surest way to diminish that winning mindset is to think, even for a minute, that maybe they're right, maybe there is something wrong with you for advocating your position. 

            Whatever they throw at you, take a moment to breathe and think, "What is the real objection here?" before you react.  Chances are the hostility is coming from fear:
fear of change, fear of new ideas, fear of losing power or authority, fear of being found out, fear of growing older... there are a million of them.  You can't necessarily know what is motivating the hostile response, but you can remember that the responder has his own agenda.  You are just a convenient target for him to vent his own problems on.