Submitted by stephenbooth_uk on
in
Forums
In his latest "Things I think I think" mail Mark indicated that politicians, whilst often held up as examples of presenters, are in fact bad examples. One particular aspect that he identified is the tendancy of politicians to avoid answering a question. Not advisable in a corporate presentation. This reminded me of a presentation skills course I attended a couple of years ago.
The trainer mentioned that he had delivered similar courses to this one to various UK politicians. He mentioned a several names, some from the previous government and more now in the current government. When he was addressing how to handle questions he spent most of the time on how to avoid answering a question you didn't want to answer. At the end of the course he revealed that the company he worked for offered a 3 day course purely on how to avoid answering questions you didn't want to answer, one day training (essentially a more detailed version of what he had taught us in 2 hours) followed by 2 days roleplaying not answering questions, and that most of our mid and senior level managers had been on that course.
Not the most useful course I'ver ever attended but, it has certainly made watching political interviews more interesting now that I'm looking out for the tactics and tricks he showed us.
Stephen
Yep, it's a trainable skill...
...and it's a sad one, isn't it?
I spent a lot of time in politics, and left because of some of the root causes for stuff like this.
That said, I do feel for public figures, because nowadays the careers of interviewers are made by the cleverness with which they pose questions which don't have a reasonable answer. Ala, "Have you stopped beating your spouse?" :-)
Merry Christmas,
Mark