You are the Finance Director for a major IT company You have

You are the Finance Director for a major IT company. You have been asked by the company’s president to present an overview of the financial state of the organization. However, the scheduled date of the presentation conflicts with a mandatory visit to the company’s overseas office and you cannot do the presentation. Instead, you ask a member of your department to present the materials. You provide the employee with the presentation slides and speaker notes and encourage the colleague to ask any questions about the presentation before you leave for the business trip. It is the day of your departure and the employee wants to speak with you about the presentation. He states he cannot do the presentation because he has a fear of public speaking. Remember that you are leaving for the airport in 1 hour and cannot give the presentation.

Questions for Discussion

1). What would you do if you were placed in this situation? As the Finance Director, what guidance would you provide the employee? How would you encourage the employee to do the presentation?

2). Refer back to the Reading for this unit. What suggestions do you have for assisting the employee in overcoming fear of public speaking?

Solution

1. It is the responsibility of a finance director to help th emeployee in giving the presentation. As the time is running out we need to help the employee in preparing for the speech and suggest some simple topics to start with. We must make sure that atleast some important points can be covered and we must not pressurise th eemployee as this will increase their fear further. We need to encourage them and make them confortable with the subject in the available time.

2.Fear of public speaking is common in many people and this needs to be broken at some point in out life. We can make the employee give more speeches and can help in assisting them on stage for the first few speeches. We can make them assist us in giving presentations so that they will get habituated to the stage before getting the spotlight on them. Then they can be given direct presentations . In this way their fear can be reduced and once they give some more speeches they will completely overcome their fears.