Dale Carnegie Course Speech
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m taking a course on Communication and Leadership Skills presented by the Dale Carnegie Course. Last night we had to give a short speech on a lesson we had learned and present it in the format:
1. Incident
2. Action
3. Benefit
The Incident is what happened - what’s the basic story that illustrates the point. The Action is the advice or point you want to share. Finally the Benefit describes what will be to the hearers advantage if they elect to take your advice or accept your point. We were told to share the Action we want to the audience to take in the format of, “My advice to you is …” We’d then share the Benefit in the format, “When you do …”
I shared the story below and had some very interesting feedback:
I was about seven or eight years old, living in a hut in a remote jungle of the Philippines with my parents who were missionaries. One day I asked my Dad to show me how we got the chicken meat that we often enjoyed at dinner. That afternoon we went outside to the area where we kept the chickens. My Dad caught one of the chickens and quickly wrung its neck. I helped hold the chicken on the chopping block and my Dad “surgically removed” the head with a machete.
Well, immediately the body sprung out of my hands and started flailing all around, running and bumping into things until it finally collapsed. My Dad picked up the dead body, had my Mom clean it, and said, “That’s where chicken comes from.”
My advice to you is be curious and ask questions. When you do you might get a good show.
— Jeff Pruett
After the evening was over, I caught up with some co-workers and one of them was obviously upset. Apparently my talk had seemed too insensitive to her as she cares deeply for animals. I tried to reassure her that the chicken felt nothing after it had it’s neck wrung. The rest of the action was just reflexes. It didn’t help. I hadn’t meant to offend, but realized that I wouldn’t be able to patch things up either. In the end, we went our separate ways, and hopefully she was able to accept my apology and move beyond the evening. We’ll see next week!