I saw an interesting tag line on a guy’s Facebook page this week. It said, “I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what others hear.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. Ugh. Sure, I get what random Facebook guy was trying to say: there’s a communication gap. You can’t control others’ perceptions. But that’s a really lazy way to look at things. And when it comes to the world of presentations, it functions like a preemptive strike to avoid blame if your presentation fails.
So today we will look at the gap between information and communication as explained by one of the world’s leading communication experts, Paul Ekman. Then we’ll discuss 3 ways to bridge the gap between the two in your presentation message and presentation design.
Information vs. Communication
As first glance, these words seem interchangeable. But there’s an important distinction here that all presenters need to understand. In “The Repertoire of Nonverbal Behavior,” Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen explain the difference. Information is what the audience understands (whether it’s what you, the speaker, intended to convey or not). Communication is what you, the speaker, intend to convey or express to your audience.
Here’s the problem. There’s often a gap between the two. Say, for example, a work team gathers for a meeting on Monday afternoon. During the meeting, the boss says, “I need all monthly reports in by 7 on Friday this week.” He means 7 AM, but that’s not what he says. So, he goes about his week believing he has communicated his expectations clearly. When his employees hear his statement, some mistakenly believe he means 7 PM on Friday. They think they got clear information. But that’s not the case. Come Friday, the misunderstanding caused by the gap between information and communication becomes clear.
3 Ways to Bridge the Gap
So how to do we bridge the gap to make sure the messages we are communicating in our presentations match the information the audience members are getting? First, we can’t be assured that our presentations will be received with 100% accuracy. That’s just the beautiful, messy nature of human communication. But we should make every effort to get as close to that 100% as we can. That large portion of that burden falls on us, the communicators. So here are 3 ways we can work to bridge the communication gap.
1. Proof with perspective.
Proofing your notes and your slides is a must. And hopefully, it’s part of your presentation process already. But we want to challenge you to proof with perspective. Specifically, with a perspective outside your own. You can use this list of questions to help:
- What is the main message I want the audience to catch? How I have I made that clear in both words and visual elements?
- What language have I used that might be unclear, confusing, or offensive to someone who isn’t me?
- What details in the presentation are most important for my audience to catch? How have I highlighted those?
- Does my presentation and slide deck have a clear flow? Will that flow make sense to my audience?
2. Gather panel feedback.
If you think it will be hard for you to step outside of your own perspective, we’d encourage you to get a panel to offer feedback. Ask co-workers or friends to listen to your presentation and give you an honest evaluation. You can use these questions with your panel:
- What was your favorite part of the presentation? Why?
- What parts of the presentation were confusing to you?
- Did your attention lapse during any specific part(s) of the presentation? Which one(s)?
- How would you summarize the content of the presentation in 5 sentences or less?
- Was there anything that was missing from the presentation?
- What did you learn?
- What did you feel?
- What might you have done differently if you were giving the presentation?
- What did I spend too much time on?
- What did I not spend enough time on?
3. Collaborate with a presentation design agency.
The last thing you can do to help bridge the communication gap between what you say and what the audience hears is to hire a presentation design agency. When you enlist the help of a presentation company, you get to take advantage of their expertise in not only presentation design, but also in content development, data visualization, and narrative theory. For example, if you were to hire Ethos3, your amazing ideas plus our presentation expertise would all but make sure that gap disappears, giving you the best shot at impacting your audience with incredible narrative and stunning visuals.
Sure, guy on Facebook. You’ll never have 100% control over what others hear in your message. But that doesn’t mean we give up trying to make our presentations clear. We don’t have to settle for a big communication gap. As Patrick G.T. Healey says, “Instead of thinking of effective communication as formulating a ‘perfect’ message, it becomes about finding optimal ways to uncover and address misunderstandings.”
If you are ready to bridge the communication gap in your presentation and slides, get in touch with one of our experts now.
