Powerful Pauses in Presentations
“Thou shalt fill up every second of your presentation with words.”
I don't know when this became a pervasive presentation commandment, but it's time to break this stone tablet with reckless abandon. I promise you won't go to presentation Hell, but you'll send your audience to Heaven.
Pauses are important for both speakers and audiences.
Table of Contents
Pause before you begin
A huge mistake I see most speakers make is that they run up on stage and launch into their speech and then spend the rest of their stage time chasing their breath.
NEVER start speaking out-of-breath.
Walk on the stage. PAUSE. Breathe. Make eye contact. Smile. Take a deep breath. Begin.
There's nothing wrong with a 5 second pause before launching into your talk. It allows you to catch your breath and it allows your audience to transition between the person who introduced you and the speaker.
Ask a question, then pause
If you pose a question to the audience, even if it's a question that is meant just for reflection, you must pause!
If you ask a question and then just keep right on going, it sends a loud message that you don't care what the audience thinks.
I taught college students for over 12 years, I got really used to silence after posing a question. I could hear crickets, the clock ticking and water dripping after asking anything. It's uncomfortable, tension filled, and feels a lot longer to you than your audience.
If you ask a question, pause at least 5 seconds before you begin again. If you want the audience to answer, let the pause go until someone speaks up. Someone always does.
Got data? Need to pause
Do you do data-driven presentations? Bar charts, line graphs, pie charts…oh my! Technical presentations are content dense. They require a lot from the audience mentally. The audience needs time to process all the information you are giving them.
If you are explaining a complex chart or concept, finish and pause. Look out at the audience. If they look confused, pose a question. If all looks well, move on to the next data point. The pause is essential to processing and comprehension.
Transitioning between points needs a pause
Transitioning between the points of your speech is one of the BIGGEST stumbling blocks in presentations. It's hard for your brain to switch gears. You stumble, use the dreaded umm word or forget where you are going all together. Don't rush transitions. Pause. Gather your thoughts. Let the audience bask in the knowledge of your last point. When you've collected your ideas, it's time to begin again.
For fluency's sake – pause when you're switching between ideas.
Pause for emphasis
You've come to the moment. You're emphasizing your big idea statement. It's the take away message. The phrase you want your audience to repeat to their friends, family and anyone who missed your great presentation. You rush right through it like a race car driver gunning for the finish line.
When you're speaking about your big idea or an a-ha moment in your speech, slow down and pause after you say it. It signals to your audience that what you just said is IMPORTANT! They will pay closer to attention.
Speakers – do not be afraid of the pause. Pausing is a great tool for you. It also gives your audience a chance to process what you're saying as well as provide context for what's important.
Embrace the power of pauses in presentations.
How do you know when you need to pause? Share your thoughts (and pauses) in the comments below.
Great points, Michelle. Even in everyday work meetings (with slides or not), lack of pauses is a real issue. (One of the best ways to foster the much-sought “employee engagement” is to pause long enough for people to speak up!)
One point I haven’t resolved yet is the difference between in-person and online talks in this respect. The trouble is, when online, you don’t want to have TOO slow a pace or too much “dead air”, or people will tune out. It’s a tricky balance, because many online presenters go at a million miles per hour!
Anyway, I like the way you actually say how long and when to pause. Those specifics make your advice very useful and “sticky”.
A while back, the Decker blog had a great post with specific tips for pausing, too. Here’s my take on that:
http://remotepossibilities.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/when-you-speak-how-often-and-how-long-should-you-pause-the-answer-try-1-2-3/
Craig – I really agree with you on employee engagement aspect. You have to pause if you want people to participate. Especially for introverts who are likely thinking big thoughts in their heads. They need the pause to process and construct their thoughts.
The online thing is a sticky wicket. I’d say you need to pause because people need to process, but the pause points need to be clear. Like transitioning in between points. Maybe it’s just pausing for a 1 second instead of 2 to make up for the lack of a visual.
Have you tried the 3-2-1 way to pause? I’ve talked to my clients about punctuation and treating that like a music score, but I’ve struggled myself with the counting. It’s too much stuff going on in my brain. Thanks for sharing your post.
As you say, one good time to pause is when going to the next point or slide.
Online, there’s often a slight delay while the slide goes “down the pipe” to the audience anyway, so it’s handy to have a laptop logged in as an audience member next to the presenter. That way, he/she can see how long the visuals are taking to come through, and can pause for a similar length of time – either while the slide is loading, or after it loads and while people absorb it for a couple of seconds.
I must say I haven’t yet tried counting the length of each pause in my head (as I’d talked about doing, below my post). My trouble has been (coming as I do from a writing background) that I prep by writing out what I’d IDEALLY like to say, then reduce that to a list of single keywords that I try to memorise. But when I’m speaking, I’m concentrating so much on what I’d hoped to say that my delivery suffers. So up to now there’s been no room to add counting into the mix!
Hence, I’m rethinking my approach and moving to concentrating on a smaller number of points that I elaborate on spontaneously as I rehearse. That’s the theory anyway, but it’s still a work in progress!
I notice that a lot with my clients, Craig. They write out their speech, and then get too hung up on what they didn’t say that they break their connection with the audience. I’ve done that too – I take my seat and think – I say this or I forgot to tell that story or I’m missed that clever turn of phrase. The best piece of advice I heard on this was from Darren LaCroix who said “No one except you know what you planned to say!”
Hello Michelle!
The Canadian Forces teaches Instructional Techniques so that all personnel learn how to teach classes proprerly and to a set standard. One of the techniques they use is the 5P’s of Questioning.
P – pose – ask the question
P – pause – wait for the thinking to rev up
P – pounce – sometimes, no one wants to volunteer, so you have to choose a person
P – ponder – consider the answer they have given and truly give it some thought
P – praise – if only some of the answer is correct, let them know and give them another chance
Sometimes the question pause can be the hardest…I know I’ve had to work at that one more than the others.
Michelle, I really like that – and yes the pause is the hardest part. When I was a professor, I would ask question – pause for a long time and then say “I can out wait you.” This typically got a laugh and then someone would answer my question.
[…] in reading: Speech Pauses: 12 Techniques to Speak Volumes with Your Silence (Andrew Dlugan) Powerful Pauses in Presentations (Michelle […]
any famous speakers who use many pauses to observe watch
Sameer, if you mean you’d like to see examples of famous speakers pausing, try watching this short video of Barack Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKv9wYO5a9s#t=3m35s
I hope that helps.
Regards,
Craig