Presentation Preparation

This weekend, between cheering for the Oregon Duck football team and getting massive amounts of studying done for midterms, many students will also be stressing about their first BA 352 presentation. But not me! For some strange reason, I love public speaking and I will be one of the lucky people who gets to present to our class bright and early on Monday morning.

This presentation has also given me another opportunity to work on my leadership development plan, specifically on my goal to enable others to act. One of the problems with my love for public speaking is that I hold myself to a fairly high standard when performing this skill. As our group has begun preparing for this first presentation, I have realized that applying that standard to the other members of my group often causes me to control their parts of the presentation and not allow them to grow or develop in these skills for themselves. Instead, by focusing on the quality of the presentation rather than on the opportunities that this presentation is giving to my group members, I create frustration and discouragement.

As a result, I have had to become more aware of my attitude and comments during this preparation period. Rather than becoming frustrated when one of my team members doesn’t speak loud enough or with enough enunciation during practice, I make sure to thank them for being willing to represent our group with me. Rather than taking over and controlling the whole presentation, I get to use my previous public speaking experiences to help my group members craft their own parts of the presentation.

As I continue to do this, I hope to be able to take a step back in my group and allow our presentation to be influenced by the whole group and not just by me. In the end, I know that this will make it a more valuable experience for all of us and a better presentation for the class.