3 - Creating a Positive Atmosphere among the Audience

Summary

This chapter asks: How do the rhetorical practices and persuasive strategies deployed by gurus potentially enhance receptivity towards their management ideas? Drawing on detailed analyses of video recordings of real-time management guru-audience interaction, the chapter describes how management gurus manage the delicate task of presenting ideas that many, if not all, of the members of their audiences do not use. On the one hand, gurus endeavour to create and maintain a positive atmosphere in the auditorium by providing audience members with opportunities to laugh collectively and engage in displays of group cohesiveness without having to unequivocally display agreement with their management ideas. In this way gurus are able to generate a positive atmosphere during their lectures regardless of the extent to which audience members agree or disagree with their ideas. On the other hand, gurus also routinely seek to minimise the likelihood of a negative atmosphere emerging when they convey ideas that are likely to be at odds with the management practices used by many audience members. The gurus do this by avoiding directly confronting or criticising their audiences.