Praise Everybody In The Audience

Supposing I want to talk about the NHS. the newspapers are running horror stories on Nil By Mouth and the Liverpool pathway.  I gave a talk which brought this up. My evaluator warned me that somebody in the audience who worked for the NHS might feel that I was attacking them. They might feel embarrassed. Or angry. Defensive.
   Imagine you are that person. How would you feel? That not all hospitals are the same? That not everybody working in the NHS agrees with these events?
   Adapt your speech accordingly. You could say, many of my friends in the NHS are upset  -
a) upset at being accused and/or
b) upset at what their colleagues are doing
c) upset that quality/practice varies so much from one hospital to another.

   Try to end on a happy note. Involve the audience. Your statement could be as simple as, do we have any patients in the audience? Do we have any doctors? Great. We have a chance to find out from local people what is going on in our area. So we can improve the situation and be confident that we are getting the best available care, from caring staff, for ourselves and our loved ones.

   

   Let's suppose your speech says that you hated your job in telecoms and are now more fulfilled working for charity. You don’t want to alienate anybody in the audience who is in the telecoms industry. The employer may feel aggrieved. The employee may feel undervalued and unappreciated.  What is your message to them? 'Thank people more?’ or  'Work for charity and you will find it rewarding?’ Yesterday’s enemy could be tomorrow’s friend. 

     It would be more tactful to say how you gained good money, or increased confidence, or benefitted from training, or made friends (who you would now like to help gain the satisfaction you later found) in your previous job in telecoms, 

but that you now have both skills and confidence - and an aim in life.