Patience

Patience, they say, is a virtue.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, the people in the audience (or at least some of them) just don’t get it. They do not understand the point that the speaker is trying to make. They ask questions that the speaker thought had been answered in the presentation.

For a speaker, this can be frustrating. He has — I would hope — put some effort into making the presentation as clear, compelling and relevant as possible. How can the audience possibly not understand?!

The curse of knowledge

Often, it has to do with the “curse of knowledge”. A while back, I wrote a seven-part series based on the book, Made to Stick. In an interview with Guy Kawasaki, the authors of the book, Chip and Dan Heath, explain the curse of knowledge:

People tend to think that having a great idea is enough, and they think the communication part will come naturally. We are in deep denial about the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others. It’s just not true that, “If you think it, it will stick.”

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

It’s a critical point to remember when preparing a speech or presentation. A speaker must be patient with his or her audience.

If the audience does not understand a concept, the speaker must try to find another way to explain it. Perhaps the audience needs a simpler example; the speaker must endeavour to come up with one. If the audience asks the same question 10 times, the speaker must answer that question — sincerely and with a smile — 10 times. If all else fails, the speaker should make himself available for further discussion after the talk and/or follow up by providing material or references that might help the audience.

A speech or presentation is always about the audience, never about the speaker. If the audience doesn’t understand, it is the speaker’s responsibility to remedy the situation. With patience and good humour.

A simple story

To conclude this post, I would like you to watch this wonderful five-minute Greek movie entitled, “What is that?” (“τι είναι αυτό” in Greek). I first saw it a couple of years ago.

It’s a simple story about patience, expressed elegantly and with emotion, that conveys a powerful lesson for everyone. For me, there is more meaning packed into this film than there is in many of the two-hour movies currently playing in our cinemas.