REPORT ON MANAGERIAL COMMUNICATION PRESENTATION BY GROUP 5 SECTION B

Is Effective Communication All About Verbosity And Fluency?

Report submitted by: Group 13 B. Jishu Rao 076 M.Anand 088 Prapti 098

ABSTRACT:
It is imperative to understand the nuances of effective communication in the present days corporate world. While it is important to be fluent and use the correct set of words in ones speech, it is also necessary to maintain a balance between this and the other aspects of effective communication. This report is a critical analysis of the group presentation on the topic Is Effective Communication All About Verbosity And Fluency? presented by Group 5, as a partial fulfilment of the course. We have analysed the presentation on various parameters, the most important being content and research findings on the hypothesis. Other aspects that we looked into were the level of involvement of the audience and the extent of their engagement in the discussion. We also analysed the quality of the Q&A session after the presentation and the ability of the group to handle the questions being thrown at them. The above analysis is based on the video of the presentation and survey undertaken by the group. We also interacted with the audience after the presentation and took their feedback on the same. We have also tried of provide some recommendations based on our analysis.

CONTENT OF PRESENTATION:
The group started the presentation by talking about fluency and how it is an important aspect of speeches. They covered the various types of fluency and then went on to explain about another feature of communication verbosity. They showed with examples how unnecessary use of extra words may make the speaker seem like a good one but actually ends up confusing the audience. The central theme of their presentation was that a speaker may have his/her own style of communicating the ideas effectively but need not necessarily be fluent or verbose in order to be able to convey those views. They did a good job in elucidating the elements of effective oral communication like fluency, tone modulation, content, body language and connection with audience by enacting how each of them had an impact on the audience. But they could have added more substance to the presentation by giving insights to the audience on how to have an effective mix of all the elements and to what level each of them could be used or how to develop them while communicating. The videos shown (speeches of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Shashi Tharoor) were apt and humorous and depicted how the efficiency of a communication style used by a speaker is dependent on the type of audience. Lalu Prasad Yadav, though not fluent could use humour and simple words to appeal to the rural masses. Shashi Tharoor, though not very humorous uses flamboyant language to attract an audience consisting of the educated elite. They also played a recorded speech of Martin Luther King to show how connecting with the audience is more important than mere fluency or verbosity. They highlighted the tools he used to inspire the listeners and stir up their emotions. Tools like use of metaphors, anaphora (repeated use of a phrase in the beginning of each sentence or paragraph), images and biblical references, etc. were explained. They could have gone on to clarify that just by connecting to the audience one cannot keep them interested but has to support it by his actions and deeds for them to believe him. Their survey questions and results were convincing. But they simply stressed the need for focussing on certain elements of communication based on the kind of audience. They could have added more questions to find out things like when people feel verbose sentences were needed to entrench the points in the listeners minds and when they felt irritated by extra use of unnecessary words. Their analysis of President Bushs speech to show the need for voice modulation was good.

STYLE OF PRESENTATION:
The members of the group perfectly justified their presentation in terms of exhibiting great communication skills and maintaining a smooth flow between different sub-topics. They made sure all the students were paying attention by use of proper body language and clear loud voices. The way they gave examples for each aspect of effective communication by means of enacting them was impressive and easy to understand. The only negatives were that they exceeded time by 3-4 minutes and started the presentation with a clarification which supposedly aimed to avoid unnecessary questions after the presentation. They also shared the time amongst them and played the videos at the right junctures between slides with text. All three of them were well conversant with their topic and explained the slides clearly without looking at them and using them just as a guide.

Q & A SESSION:
The first question was asked to clarify what exactly verbosity meant and whether verbosity was needed to explain things to people who do not get the message conveyed through the simple sentences used. The group answered the question well by telling the audience that verbosity was completely different from elaboration. The group used the example of the famous Aamir Khan scene in the movie 3 Idiots in which he defines machine and book to explain the meaning of verbosity. The answer also was sufficient for another similar question that came up regarding use of verbosity to explain things to small children. One other question was a clarification about the term anaphora. There was a bit of confusion here as the dictionary contains two contradicting meanings for the term: 1. Using a pronoun or similar word instead of repeating a word used earlier 2. Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses The group had taken the second meaning in trying to explain Martin Luther Kings speech. The audience also questioned that the example of Mr. Lalu Prasad which was used by the group in their analysis is justified or not. Is he effective because of his way of speaking, fluency or because of his element of humour and rustic appeal. They challenged the groups claim that though Lalu Yadav was not fluent, he was effective. The questioner said that it was just a matter of language and Lalu was not fluent since he did not have enough command over English. This question was sufficiently addressed in the sense that the group mentioned about the right of a politician to use any language for speech provided he/she had content and how Lalu used his rustic ways of communication to make his speech humorous. The next question was about the relative importance of the audience compared to the situation in modifying the style of communication. This was tackled by saying both were equally important.

CONCLUSION:
Overall, the presentation was good and showed the importance of each aspect of effective oral communication. The group could have gone further to advice the audience on how to develop them and how to judiciously use them to keep the listener interested. On a critical note it can be said that the group Skewed the scope of their research and left a few aspects that were relevant to this topic. While the topic was Is Effective Communication All About Verbosity And Fluency?, the content mostly spoke about the of the various attributes of an effective communication and what are the qualities of an effective communicator. To make the presentation more precise and content oriented they could have concentrated on these two aspects of communication that is verbocity and fluency in greater depth. Various questions could have been addressed regarding these two aspects, such as how fluency can help in effective communication? Are there any demerits or any situation where it can fail? Why some people cant speak fluently while the others can? There can be several reasons for it. There can be others reasons to it such as physiological (some people stammers while speaking) or it might be psychological (some people are afraid of speaking in front of public or mass crowd). Can fluency be developed in life time and if so what are the various possible ways