Oops…a little Freudian slip there. I meant to say, “Let the public meeting begin.”

But from my perspective as the former Manager of Public Affairs for a chemical manufacturing company that made one of the smelliest chemicals known to man, when we prepared for a public meeting, we knew it usually wouldn’t be fun. We would remind each other to put on our flak jackets. Most of the people were not getting up out of their easy chairs to go down to the town hall to tell the elected officials how glad they were to have us in the community!

I am betting that many of you can identify with this. So many of my subscribers and friends are in the chemical industry or are involved in handling hazardous materials. But these folks are not the only ones who need to be well prepared to stand up and answer tough questions.

It can be a meeting of your own employees who are angry about something your organization did or is rumored to be doing. It can be a group of unhappy shareholders. It could even be your own Board of Directors!

Earlier this month I conducted my media training workshop for a fine company in western Tennessee. As always, I told them I entitle my workshops “Coaching to Meet the Press and Other Hostile Audiences” for good reason. The skills we work on are useful whether you are faced with a print reporter or an irate citizen, a TV camera or a group of upset employees.

In setting up my six role-playing scenarios, I make it a practice to conduct four traditional one-on-one reporter to spokesperson types of interviews, one press conference and one group meeting. Before I go to the company, I find out if there are any hot issues. If there aren’t, then we just pretend that the crisis situations covered in the previous five scenarios have occurred within the past year. The community feels the company is out of control and they’ve requested that you appear before their next board meeting.

When the questions could be about anything and the audience is apt to be upset, anxious, angry or frightened, it is hard to know how to prepare.

The first thing I tell my clients is to prepare and commit to memory their three major talking points. (This is the subject of another e-zine; I promised to keep these short!) While these are critical, you need more than your three talking points. You must also spend a good deal of time preparing for the most likely questions you think you are going to get. Pull together a group of employees and ask them to put themselves in the shoes of a concerned neighbor, frightened employee, anxious shareholder, etc.

People often ask me why I don’t play the role of these angry people and the reporters in all of our scenarios. My answer is two-fold: (1) because I couldn’t possibly know all the “hot buttons” that an employee familiar with the organization will know and (2) because it is a good exercise to put yourselves in the shoes of “the other side” from time to time.

Let the questions flow. People really get into this. Sure the three or four people on the pretend dias are sweating and squirming a bit when the questions get tough. But it is better to work answers out in this kind of setting than it would be if you waited until the real meeting. During the feedback and critique session,, the group can discuss what the answers should be and come up with the best way to word them.

A number of years ago I was contacted by the president of a local bank. He and his management team had turned down a bid to be acquired. One stockholder in particular was enraged at what he thought was a dumb decision. He alerted the president that he intended to bring the issue up at the next shareholder’s meeting. This particular shareholder was well known for some nasty tactics and the president was fairly sure that he would have stacked the audience with others of like mind.

As one of our first training exercises, I asked a lot of tough questions. The president was almost cowering behind the podium, looking shaky and answering with a faltering voice, stumbling over his words and rambling a bit. Four hours later, after I provided him and his executive staff with some techniques and basic concepts and ran them through a few mock reporter interviews on various subjects, we put on a mock shareholders meeting. I gathered a dozen employees in the cafeteria and briefed them on the situation. When the president took to the podium this time, it was like he was a different person! He had an air of assurance, without being cocky. He made his points clearly and with conviction. At the end, the employees gave him a standing ovation! Later he told me this had been a tremendous boost to his confidence, and led to his performing well on the day of the meeting. The agitator’s resolution was soundly defeated.

Of course if you want advice from someone who has been doing this for years, I would be happy to help you. (My boss once told me my job description should have read “javelin catcher!”) But once you know the basics about powerful, targeted content and have learned how to deliver your message effectively and use body language to emphasize your points and persuade people, you can practice these things on your own.

Just remember, this is a group effort. Use part of a regular staff meeting or call a special meeting for just this purpose. Put up in the front of the room the folks who will be representing you at the next group meeting. Let the others play the roles of the upset people. Make sure you’ve at least thought about the various questions you might get. (You don’t want any big surprises!) Work through together what the best possible responses would be.

NOW you are ready to go to that tough meeting. It still won’t be fun, but at least you can feel more assured that you will do the best possible job.

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