How to make your audience want to hear complex info

In my consulting days, our company had a “Project of the Week” presentation at our weekly staff meeting. The objective was to foster understanding and cross-collaboration by exposing the whole company to projects occurring in each of the four functional areas. This presentation was to be a 4-minute “mini talk,” highlighting an interesting project that the broader team could understand.

Usually the “mini talk” ended up being a 10-minute presentation that only people in the speaker’s functional team could understand. The rest of us were forced to quietly entertain ourselves while the small group of the speaker’s colleagues engaged in a lively discussion.

For one of my team’s presentations, I chose the guy who could explain a mathematical analysis that everyone had heard of but no one understood. It was a complex methodology that we called “Ben’s model”; the nickname and office notoriety were all most people knew about it.

The person responsible for giving our presentation was well qualified to present this topic. He is a mathematician like me but a much more serious one!

So now I am responsible for coaching one of the “mathiest” of all mathematicians to explain this complex analysis to a diverse group of nonmath people, including recent college graduates, experienced professionals in other disciplines, and even nonscientists on the finance team.

Challenge accepted!

Presenting something complicated? Make your audience want to learn it.

First, he started by acknowledging that everyone had probably heard of “Ben’s model” and didn’t understand it. That was the hook. Everyone had heard about it, and they were curious to know what the big deal was.

Next, he explained the real-world problem the analysis addressed and why it was a problem. This helped the audience understand why “Ben’s model” even existed and why the model’s advocates thought it was so important.

By now the 4-minute limit had been reached. When “To be continued…” appeared on the monitor, the room erupted in a chorus of disappointed groans, as if that were the cruelest of cliff-hangers! This was quite an accomplishment; how often does an audience complain that they weren’t presented enough technical info?

After my colleague concluded the presentation the following week, I received a lot of thanks for demystifying “Ben’s model” and kudos for coaching him in explaining it so simply. One co-worker even said, “You should be the Chief Simplicity Officer!” I loved that idea and eventually became just that.

Captivate your audience; don’t take captives

Many of you have a daily need to explain complex stuff to people who’d rather not listen to it. Here are the key elements to our communication triumph that you can use to get your messages across.

Step 1: Highlight a knowledge gap that the audience has. People hate knowledge gaps. This is the reason we will watch until the end of the worst, most campy murder mystery because we want to know who the killer is. The audience will want to close a knowledge gap, so they will be willing to put in extra effort to understand something complicated to eliminate it.

In our case, everyone in the company already had a knowledge gap, they just had to be reminded of it. Moreover, they were thankful that they were going to get to close that gap and learn what this mysterious “Ben’s model” was about! That is why they were audibly frustrated at the end of the first session. The gap hadn’t yet been closed.

Most presenters will first have to open a gap for the audience before they can close it. Most researchers tend to tell people information or facts immediately. The problem is that people don’t know they need those facts, so they have no reason to listen.

A better strategy is to first highlight some specific knowledge that is missing. This can be done by posing a question or a misconception that confronts people with a piece of information they are either missing or don’t properly understand.

Step 2: Explain the real-world significance of the challenge. This helps establish trust with the audience that what you are going to tell them won’t be boring. Data is inherently boring. When you explicitly tell the audience why those data have meaning, they will value the information you tell them more highly—and pay closer attention. It must be extremely obvious to the audience why what you are going to say matters and why they should listen.

If you’ve ever spent time with a young child, you know that “why” is a very important question. They have a knack for asking why about something we have accepted without thought for years. Similarly, when we explain science that we understand very well, it can be hard to remember the building blocks of information necessary for an outsider to appreciate it as we do.

Step 3: Explain the solution simply. Strip down your idea to its most basic essence and present that first. The early parts of your message have the highest probability of being understood by the audience, so that information should be the key thing they need to know if they don’t grasp anything else.

From there you can add information and context to your core message, one additional piece at a time. One technique to help people understand new information is to connect it to something that they already know.

Here’s a good AI-generated example of relating new information to familiar concepts: Think of a network firewall like a bouncer at a nightclub. The bouncer carefully examines everyone who wants to enter, allowing only those who meet the club’s criteria. Similarly, a firewall inspects all incoming and outgoing network traffic, blocking any suspicious activity or unauthorized access.

Also read more about how to make your messages simple here.

Remember, to be inspiring and influential, you must give audiences a reason to want to listen to you and make them believe that listening won’t be hard work. Once you’ve earned that trust, you have to keep it by presenting your information simply.

Want personalized help in getting and keeping audience attention? Contact me for a consultation.