Many of my corporate executive presentation training clients come to me and express concerns about how their presentation will “flow.” They are obsessed with each and every thought connecting in a seamless manner, as if they were writing a work of great literature.
All things being equal, of course it would be nice if every single thought out of your mouth flowed together during a speech. But not all things are equal. There is a much bigger danger for the average corporate speaker than “flow.” The danger s that the speaker is BORING AS HADES!
Your first concern as a speaker is figuring out how you can present information in an interesting and memorable manner. This should be a much bigger concern than whether all of your ideas “flow” together perfectly.
If you have just told an interesting story that makes a point during your speech, there is nothing wrong with simply stopping, pausing, looking at another part of the room and then starting an entirely new point. Your audience cannot judge your “flow” or your connections in the same way they could if they were reading a written report. When it comes to text, flow is critically important. When sentences and paragraphs don’t flow together well, it makes the writer stand out as amateurish, or worse, a poor thinker.
Transitions are not AS important when giving public speeches (note: I am NOT saying that transitions are completely unimportant). This is because people listen differently than they read. When you read, you can stop, go back to the previous paragraph, reflect, and analyze as you go (and take your own time doing it). When you listen to someone speak, you are in the moment. You are paying attention to the words as they come out. You don’t have the luxury of playing back what was just said, or fast forwarding to a later part of the speech. If you stop to critique some part of the speech, you miss what is being said in the present and you can never get that moment back.
Being an audience member is a totally different experience from being a reader.
The master speaker realizes this. Therefore, the speakers who excel spend most of their time making sure their messages and their stories are truly interesting and memorable. Concern for “flow” is not abandoned, but it is given a back seat.
