Do You Provide Enough Information To Keep Your Audience’s Attention?

A few years ago I learned something interesting about the rate at which people can listen versus the rate at which we speak. This occurred while I was listening to an audio program on listening skills. The author discussed the fact that on average we talk at about 120 words per minute. He went on to explain that the average person can comprehend information at a rate of four times that amount – that is, five hundred words per minute.

To prove the point the author read a passage while the word count was electronically increased. Sure enough I was able to comprehend what he was talking about without too much difficulty.

The point of the audio program was to teach people how not to get bored while they listening at a rate far slower than what they are able to take information in at. However, as a speaker I believe that I can learn a different message from the exercise. We can use this information to make sure that we are not boring.

Now you may be saying to yourself, “Hold on David, there is no way that I am going to speak at 500 words per minute.” Well, I completely agree. Such an attempt would be self-defeating.

Although I was able to comprehend the information on the sped up program, it was only when I was devoting my entire attention to it. Trying to pay attention to speech at this rate for any length of time would be tiring if nothing else. In addition, a listener may hear a point, but s/he would be so focused on it that s/he would probably forget any previous information.

No - speeding up our speeches to the point of an auctioneer is not going to benefit our audience. So what is?

Well let’s pause for a moment and think of situations where we are listening to a speaker and finding it boring.

One such situation is relevance – that is, within the scope of understanding and application of the listener. If you are not relevant to your audience then they are going to have difficulty making sense of what you are saying – in reality it will be irrelevant. I’ve covered this in some of my previous articles.

Another situation is when a speaker is reading information from a page or an onscreen (PowerPoint) presentation verbatim. They are not giving any information other than merely reciting some dry facts. They typically stand behind a lectern with very little movement and talk in a monotonous voice. This speaker is often focused on his/her material but fails to realize that holding his/her audience’s attention relies upon the delivery just as much as it does on the content.

An inexperienced speaker might justify this by insisting that the material is so important that s/he does not want to distract the audience with the delivery or that the audience should be so interested in the material that they don’t need the fancy delivery.

Now let’s be honest here. Most often this reasoning comes from someone who is not comfortable speaking. This individual knows that s/he will feel even less comfortable if s/he modifies the delivery at all. I know this because I was such a person. I used to write my content in a very meticulous manner. I crafted it as eloquently as I could – and then I proceeded to deliver it in a very dry and even boring manner.

When you are watching a television show do you get bored? What about when dry content is being delivered such as the news? The answer is probably not. The reason is because the TV Producers know that delivery is as important as content. They “spice” up the program with theme music, flashy transitions, and constant changes of camera angles. All of this is put in to hold your attention.

What about when you have an interesting conversation with someone? What is happening then? The individual is not just providing you with dry information. S/he (and you as well) are communicating with facial expressions, gestures, eye contact and variations in your voice just to name a few.

Hopefully at this point you are starting to have the same “ah-ha” moment that I had. All of these additional communication modes that we automatically use fill in for the extra 380 words per minute of information that our audience could absorb. We aren’t going to give them 500 words per minutes, but we will still give them additional information through our body language.

We have discussed a couple of aspects of gestures in previous articles. If you are new to this site you can read them by clicking on the next button at the bottom of this page. We will continue this discussion of body language by delving into other areas such as eye contact, motion, and using props.

You don’t have to use all of these techniques - however the occasional expression, gesture, or movement will most certainly help grab your audience’s attention.

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