Mike Domitrz argues that controversial statements alienate half your audience. Instead, ask simple questions everyone can answer safely. This unites the room and lets you make your point without losing people.
One of the biggest mistakes people make around this topic of engagement, and as far as getting the audience to engage, is they'll say, come out and say something controversial. That's one of the worst pieces of advice you could ever give a speaker, and here's why. Why do you want to tune out half your audience? So if you say something controversial and half of them think that's ridiculous, I'm not listening to this person the rest of the hour, you've just lost half the audience all because you wanted to be controversial versus asking a question that the Entire audience feels safe answering together a simple question that unites the room and in the end actually proves a point that you want to help debunk.
