Emotional connection is the magic carpet that carries information to a listener’s memory. A speaker’s highest priority is to make that connection. Without it, content is either not heard at all or is not remembered.
Recently I watched a good speaker sacrifice her connection with an audience because she felt her information had a higher priority. What she didn’t realize was that by doing so she made it difficult, if not impossible, for her audience to remember the information she felt was so important.
The situation was a fundraising concert for a charitable organization that does very needed and valuable work in the community. In the course of the evening, there was an opportunity for a representative of the organization to speak about the service they provide.
A bright, lively woman walked to the front of the hall. She began by voicing her appreciation for the performers and made some self-deprecating, gently humorous comments about her own lack of musical ability. She connected beautifully with her listeners. She carried her body well, smiled and made eye contact. She spoke extemporaneously, and her voice was vibrant, warm and conversational. Because she was making an emotional connection, she was memorable.
As she made the transition into talking about the charitable organization, she said, “I’m going to read this because I don’t want to forget any of what I want to tell you.” She then held up a sheet of paper and proceeded to read aloud five or six points. At least she held the paper high enough that we could still see her face –except, of course, for the portion of the audience blocked out by the paper – but with her eyes on the printed words, she lost the audience eye contact that had been serving her so well only moments before. Her voice immediately lost its warmth and naturalness. While it didn’t exactly become a monotone, it had nowhere near the engaging, compelling quality it had when she was speaking conversationally.
Not only did the speaker lose her emotional connection with the audience, the audience lost the sense that she was personally connected to what she was saying. By making information more important than connection, she made that very information unmemorable. I was listening carefully, but after her presentation, I couldn’t have reported to you what she had said – all except for the last point about the service being free of charge to the people who use it. After reading that point, she lowered the paper, her audience connection and vocal vibrancy snapped back into place, and she repeated that final, crucial point.
The speaker had no lack of passion for her subject. Ironically, I suspect it was that very passion that caused her to make the counter-productive switch from talking to reading, causing her words to lose their impact, rather than increase it.
Our brains don’t easily retain dry data. We retain information with an emotional element far more readily and more deeply. The emotional region of our brain – specifically a part called the hippocampus – connects emotions and senses with information to create short-term memory, and then sends those memories out to other parts of the brain for long-term storage. The stronger the emotion that’s attached to the information, the more securely it is stored. That’s why stories are so powerful, because they generate an emotional connection with the audience.
What could our speaker have done instead of reading? As a representative of the organization, she was thoroughly versed in their services. She knew far more than she needed to say. It would have served her better to hold a card with just key words on it, briefly glance at the card to remember the next point, immediately look back at her listeners and talk to them the way she did so effectively at the beginning of her presentation. That way she could have maintained her audience connection while still remembering her points.
An audience is not a tape recorder. People connect with information only if they feel connected to the speaker who delivers it. And so I repeat – a speaker’s top priority is to create an emotional connection, a feeling of connection, with the audience. That’s the magic carpet that your words ride on to reach your listener’s memory.
