Be polite, sure, but not politeness might not even be what the other party is looking for …

Read more thoughts on the art of communicating week-daily at https://michaelgerharz.com/blog

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Have you ever sat in a totally boring presentation but ended

up clapping your hands anyway?

Clearly, the applause wasn't well-deserved but you clapped anyway.

But why?

Out of peer pressure?

Or pure relief that finally it's over?

Out of politeness?

Well, it may be polite but the problem with undeserved applause is that the

speaker doesn't get a chance to grow.

She doesn't get to feel the consequences of a bad performance.

She gave her speech, everyone clapped, case closed.

Everything's fine.

But what if her goal actually wasn't to get a good round of applause but

to really change her audience's minds?

To anchor her message in the minds of her audience?

She won't be able to verify that it worked.

At least not easily.

For example, was the customer's decision for or against the

project based on the presentation?

Was it her speech that led to more employees adopting the new work

culture or was it something else?

When direct feedback is missing, things like that are just hard to tell.

As a leader, you should encourage your team to provide honest feedback

and deal with it graciously.

As a group, you should agree to give honest feedback.

As an audience member, sure, be polite, but also help the speaker grow.

Especially if that's what she's looking for.

And that's the crucial point.

As a speaker, you should be the driving force yourself.

If you are looking to make change happen, then question yourself and

encourage your audience to be honest with you and to give you honest feedback.

Find out who honestly tells you whether your talk is actually great.

And then, go make a leap change things and next time deliver a talk that has

the potential to change the world.