How To Make Sure Your Audience ACTUALLY Understands You

The presenter began her talk by turning her body mainly towards the slides. As she rambled on, she would look up at the slides, fire off a comment or two then ask the clarifying question, “Make sense?”

As the audience grumbled back an uh-huh or two, she took that as a cue to move on. After 25 minutes of this, a gentleman raised his hand to ask a question.

“How do we find the right documentation to complete these reports?”

Her response? “Well, I covered that on slide 3, back at the beginning. I thought you said you understood?”

Embarrassed, the gentleman slowly lowered his hand, slumped his shoulders and began thumbing through his notes to find the information. As he did this, someone who was a bit bolder said, “That’s important info. Can you go over it again?”

Clearly perturbed, the presenter tersely walked over to the laptop to find the slide.

Unfortunately, situations like this happen with regularity in some organizations. The presenter requests feedback but only out of habit. They aren’t concerned with whether the audience actually gets the information. Once the content is delivered, the job is complete and the responsibility to understand now rests on the audience’s shoulders. Right?