Reporting And Briefing (1979)

foreign [Music] I have an appointment at 3 30 to see the group vice president thank you hey Bob hi Neil you too yep she wants to see you too yeah what do you think she wants well I don't know gentlemen you can go right in she's expecting you well we'll know in a minute good morning good morning good morning it's good to see you see you I'm sure both of you know that the annual stockholders meeting is scheduled for the end of this month the chairman has expressed his concern over a couple of uh sticky questions he may have to feel from some of our unhappy stockholders well the Chairman's concern is our concern how can we help I was getting to that I have volunteered to answer any questions from the floor dealing with declining sales and profitability in our consumer line and with any challenges as to the effectiveness of our community relations program and you want us to dig up the ammunition for you hey climb short so I'll need your briefing at 10 A.M next Monday morning I need both facts and figures from you any questions Bob Neal she only wants a briefing I thought we might be in for a hatchet job yeah but Monday doesn't give us much time to prepare no sweat I could have given her a briefing right there on the spot with facts and figures says that she just wants the big picture I can wing it yeah well we'll see catch you Monday morning all right later we'll return to Neil and Bob later to see how they get along with their briefing of the vice president in the military as in the business World briefings and reports are routine daily activities they're also standard procedure in education and in just about any other type of organization you'll be called upon to give briefings and oral reports hundreds of times during your lifetime some will be in formal situations such as this not so formal and what did he say about your promotion well he said there were three things I had to do to qualify for my own territory one I had to take a night school course in accounting two I had to take a speech course oh we're getting along here Kenny well we these bearings are out we're going to have to disassemble the whole thing and put the bearings in and so about two and a half days would be about yes some reports can be as simple as that but not all reports and briefings are equally successful it's both the power supply and the steering and here we have it's helpful if the report is also interesting but don't confuse interest with entertainment the function of the oral report or briefing is to impart information not to entertain recognizing it here are the mountains of Finland and Norway and the Upper Peninsula of Finland and remember if you've been asked to brief a group they're already interested in this subject for its own sake they want you to give them the facts though your presentation May consist of figures statistics or technical explanations they're important and interesting to your listeners or they wouldn't have asked for the briefing let's see how logical easy to follow organization of the material in a report contributes to Clarity and interest the instruments are divided into these four sections the first section is the Rhythm Section the next section the melodic section the third section is the horn section and of course last the vocal section can you sense the rightness of the organization here if so what made it right was the flow achieved by separating the material into natural units now let's watch two different speakers present oral reports on the same subject in the classroom the assignment is to report on the accomplishments of a famous American listen carefully to see how these two have organized their material my reporters on Theodore Roosevelt as you probably already know Theodore Roosevelt was a very famous man he did a lot of great things he died in 1919 and before that he was the president of the United States he traveled all over many things interested in uh he had a lot of talents a lot of talents he was a very smart man he was born in 1858 and I think he was one of the greatest Americans of all time he died in olhum this speaker's rambling report lacks structure and direction it wanders aimlessly from one unconnected generalization to another and if a report is supposed to convey information what did you learn about Theodore Roosevelt from this presentation let's try another report on the same topic 60 years it's probably safe to refer to him as Teddy but while he was alive no one would have dared to call him that to his face but Theodore Roosevelt was truly an awesome human being let me try to prove this to you by listing just a few of his accomplishments Not only was he the youngest president in the history of the United States and a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is also an author he wrote literally hundreds of Articles and published more books than Ernest Hemingway he was an adventurer probably the best known Big Game Hunter in the world he was a scholar he was an acknowledged Authority on a variety of subjects ranging from post-futurist painting to Hungarian history to Greek drama to political economy and even while he was in the White House the national museum called upon him to identify some rare mammals that their own experts couldn't classify he was a soldier he was the Daredevil commander of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and he personally led the charge up San Juan Hill and he's much better did you notice how this speaker stated her main theme then Amplified and reinforced it by giving example after example no haphazard organization here he traveled all over while the first Speaker offered only vague and meaningless generalities uh and he had a lot of talents a lot of talents the second speaker presented specific examples and information the Nobel Peace Prize winner he was also an author he wrote literally hundreds of Articles it seems apparent that presenting specific examples and information adds to both Clarity and interest the best known Big Game Hunter in the world and he was a Statesman what else did you notice about the second speaker's report did the visual aids help her achieve both Clarity and interest check out this speaker's techniques of presenting a factual report okay well when I pull a driver over to the side of the road and give him one of these a traffic ticket is quite likely to say to me why are you out catching criminals is this specific and yet each year more than six times as many are killed and injured and car accidents as in crime is this specific in this County alone last year there were seven homicides but 60 traffic deaths is this specific within the next 12 months the likelihood that you will become the victim of a personal criminal attack is one in 550 is this specific not only does the speaker pile up one specific example after another but he reinforces them with visual aids one in 550 within the same 12 months the likelihood that you will die or be injured in an automobile is one in fifty I do not give tickets to drivers who are observing the law I am catching dangerous criminals this presentation is well organized and uses visual aids liberally it rates high in both Clarity and interest but how about accuracy did he present concrete facts and figures or did his report sound like guesswork accuracy is essential to an effective report so don't guess get the facts what else can we learn from this speaker well which brings us to the point of the reckless driver and and it's strange we call them that because reckless drivers have more wrecks than anybody else appropriate humor adds interest but the key word is appropriate dragging in a long funny story unrelated to your subject simply detracts from a report use humor but only if it's appropriate and that goes for visual aids as well consider this use of visual aids so as we've seen brown spiders are extremely dangerous their bites can be fatal to children and they are commonly found right here in our own community it is imperative that you learn how to identify them I brought along this photograph of a brown spider to help you identify it notice the distinctive markings on the back can you see that they're in the back of the room no I guess not no need to dwell on this point visual aids must be appropriate well I I should have brought along something larger I guess to recap so far we've seen that good organization of the material instruments each having a part in that total sound specific examples and appropriate visual aids can add Clarity and interest to a report he personally led the charge up San Juan Hill accuracy is essential so don't guess get the facts now let's rejoin Bob and Neil as they prepare to brief their vice president using the criteria we've already learned about effective reporting and briefing put yourself in her place you be the boss you judge the briefings we've caught a lot of flack about our community relations program and all of us who work in that department are beginning to resent it it's unwarranted and unjustified we work hard I put in a lot of extra hours and so do some of the other people who work in the department we must put in oh 10 maybe 20 hours overtime in an average week and that doesn't cost the stockholders one red Cent because we don't get paid extra for it we're all on salary no overtime pay you know that might be something you could bring up to the chairman sort of test the wind you know would sure help morale around here if we got some overtime pay or compensatory time off for working nights and weekends uh where was I um oh uh one thing we definitely need to bring up is uh is our minority hiring program that's community relations important community relations affirmative action we've hired and recruited a lot of women into responsible positions and our record of minority hiring is good there must be yo well the exact percentage of increase isn't important but it's significant I can vouch for that great enough gone up dramatically let's go on to Bob I've prepared a written report to go along with the briefing all the documentation of the sources is in here and this appendix includes copies of all the appropriate graphs charts and tables These Bars indicate our production level sales volume and profits on all consumer items to the third quarter of this year These Bars indicate those same items for the first three quarters of last year it appears that our consumer division's productivity sales volume and profits will decline seriously this year but appearances can be deceiving as this chart indicates most of our decline occurred during this past quarter and there are two main reasons for this decline first plants will close down for retooling notice that Bob uses a variety of visual aids to introduce explain and amplify his main points as this chart indicates nine out of 10 of our customers were able to readily accept our new product that makes a percentage 87.9 percent along detailed statistical report can turn into a confusing jumble unless the speaker finds graphic ways of presenting the figures carefully planned graphs and charts not only add variety and interest to the presentation they give the audience an instant visual representation of Trends and relationships so our projections show that will end the fiscal year just about here a significant difference over last year do you have any questions audience would you like more detail on any of these points no thanks Bob I think we got the message hello