A workshop on “Communication and Presentation Skills” was conducted on Friday, 01st August, 2025 at National Institute of Public Administration, (NIPA) Lahore, with an aim to enlighten the participants of 44th MCMC. The scope included the importance of effective communication for leaders, useful Presentation Skills, how to communicate clearly & effectively, how to ensure effective communications in organizations and practical/hands-on exercises. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Jamal Yousaf.
The guest speaker emphasized that effective communication, presentation and public speaking skills are valuable life skills. He conducted the session in two parts. First, he introduced the topic by emphasizing that communication is one of the most influential subjects known to mankind. It involves the speaker, the audience and the message. In communication, diction can be improved with a good word/sentence bank, knowledge and experience. Credible rhetoric, stable emotions and logic add force to communication and make it more effective. The guest speaker advised that fear must be avoided in communication as fear causes hesitation, which in return affects the communication negatively.
For public speaking, the guest speaker advised that one should know one’s audience and listen to one’s audience. If the audience is silent and attentive, then the speaker has succeeded in his public speaking. Guiding the participants, the guest speaker advised that to captivate one’s audience, one must avoid technical terms, mind one’s gestures, maintain eye contact, pleasant facial expressions and avoid podium. The guest speaker explained that for effective public speaking; appearance, context, clarity, coherence, pronunciation, pace, pitch, pauses and rapport with the audience are very important. In public speaking no reading, no cluttered slides, good contrast, time management, simplicity, and visibility are the keys to success. He explained that judging, complaining, negativity, whispering, excuses, lying and dogmatism are seven deadly sins of public speaking.
In the second part, each participant spoke for 3 minutes on the topic assigned to him/her and the guest speaker reviewed the participant’s performance assessing the communication and presentation skills demonstrated by the participant.