How does the human mind work when faced with a powerpoint slide and a speaker? Learn a simple tip to stop talking and start infuencing from the book Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Insights from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick by Dr Jared Horvath.
[00:00:00] Ideas are everywhere. Welcome to Lessons Learned in Marketing, the Phoenix Group podcast. I'm your host, David Bellerive. Today, we're going to talk about presentations. Here's what we coach and try to do all the time at Phoenix Group, no handouts during the presentation, always give the handouts after the presentation. And when you're building your PowerPoint slides, keep the words to a minimum. So why do we do that? Well, it all has to do with paying attention. And how does that all work? Well, I want to introduce you to a book. A book? Yes, a book. The book is Stop Talking, Start influencing, 12 insights from brain science to make your message stick. And it's from Dr Jared Horvath. This is an excerpt from the first chapter when he talks about how we process information. And he does go into great detail in the brain about how we receive information and how we really can't take in two different streams of information. In fact, if you try to absorb two pieces of information at the same time, your brain makes a decision and forces you to focus on one and discard the other. So what are the implications for us? Well, number one, no text on slides. Here's what Dr. Horvath's says. [00:01:49][109.1]
[00:01:50] The audience typically attempts to jump back and forth between you and your slides, causing them to lose important information from each. In fact, a number of studies have demonstrated that individuals who receive information in a single manner, oral or text, consistently comprehend and remember more than individuals who receive the same information simultaneously, oral and text. [00:02:13][23.0]
[00:02:14] So the next time you're asked to give a presentation, do not put text on your PowerPoint slides. That's a hard one. I know. No text. OK, so what if you have to have some text, maybe a few words, would that be OK? Well, he does address that. Here's what Dr. Horvath's says again. [00:02:32][17.6]
[00:02:33] Interestingly, the need to internally translate visual text into auditory speech only occurs when many words are being read in succession, like in a sentence, paragraph or slide of a text. When we read a small number of highly familiar words, then we can bypassed vocalization and directly access their meaning. So for this reason, including a very small number of words on each slide and he recommends generally less than seven might not interfere with anyone's ability to listen to your speech. [00:03:07][33.8]
[00:03:09] So generally, we got to try to keep it under seven words, which is also very difficult. Then , I know this happens,we want to reinforce what we're saying with the words on the slide. So the next question is, what if the words on the slide are the same as the words I'm saying out loud? Will that still create interference? Here's what Dr. Harvat says. [00:03:34][25.1]
[00:03:35] The simple answer, yes, the reason is pacing. The average person speaks at a rate of about 130 words a minute, while the average person reads at a rate of about two hundred and twenty words a minute. Highly skilled readers can hit 1000 words per minute. So when an audience is presented with identical, written and spoken words, the tendency will be to read ahead or out of sequence with a presenter. And when this occurs, we're back to the same boat as before, with the words generated by the silent reading, conflicting with the words generated by the voice, therefore bottleneck. [00:04:12][37.1]
[00:04:14] So then what about the handouts? Why don't I hand out presentation notes or additional information ahead of my presentation? Here's what Dr. Horvath says. [00:04:24][10.2]
[00:04:25] Oftentimes, during a talk lesson or coaching session, presenters will supply their audience with handouts meant to supplement their speech. Unfortunately, if they contain text, then we can expect the same issue in order to read a handout during a presentation, people must stop listening to the speaker. Conversely, when you're listening to the speaker, there's no chance you'll be able to read the handouts. Therefore, try to distribute text based handouts after your talk is complete. [00:04:55][29.8]
[00:04:56] There you go. You can blame science. Now, let's flip this around. What if you're attending a presentation and the speaker has piles of words on the slides or they've given you take away handout, what should you do? Well, if you want to learn, you got to pick one. Which one to pick? Dr. Horvath's suggests follow the speaker. Always pay attention to the speaker because the slides are unchanged. But the speaker will probably respond to the mood of the crowd. They might have some anecdotes or some side stories that didn't make it onto the slides. So you can expect to get more relevant, more coherent and just more information from speakers than from their notes. I hope you'll pick up the book. It's really fascinating. And that's just a glimpse into Chapter one. It's all about stop talking, start influencing again 12 insights from brain science to make your message stick. And it's from a Dr. Jared Horvath. Thanks for listening. [00:04:56][0.0]
