by Wai Heng Kelvin Lee

Created on: February 10, 2009

The Fear of Silence

Public presentations are not familiar or comfortable terrain for many of us, so when we actually do present, stage fright tends to take over. As a result, we keep talking (and talking.)

One reason for this is obvious we are anxious, and anxiousness influences us to speed up while talking. The other reason is not so obvious, and that is the fear of silence. Presenters often fear silence, because it is commonly perceived as an indicator of uncertainty or incapability.

But quite the contrary, silence actually helps the audience digest the information presented to them. And when the information gets digested, they are more likely to remember what you have said!

The School Lecturer

Have you had a lecturer who kept going on and on during his or her lessons? If you have, I am sure you could liken the experience to taking a sip of water from a fire hydrant. Instead of enjoying a satisfying sip, you get blasted in your face. Similarly with your audience, instead of having a clear and concise presentation, they are overloaded with facts. However, when you pause even if just for a few seconds they would be able to digest your points much better.

The audience's confidence in you would be built when they see that you are able to sustain their attention even during those few moments of silence. Seeing that you take into account their needs, they would be more appreciative and respectful of you as the presenter. Also, when you pause, you actually allow yourself to think through the next point. This could help make your presenting even clearer.

One more thing can be done to produce a greater effect with your pauses. You should look your audience eye-to-eye as if to ask "Are you following me so far?" because this ensures two-way communication during your presentation.

Applying it to your PowerPoint Presentations

You might be wondering how all this can be applied to your PowerPoint Presentations. Well, that is simple.

As you move from one slide to the next, always remember to pause in between. Also keep in mind that your pause should be longer if the previous slide contained a lot of information.

Personally, it always works when I use this technique in my presentations. And as expected, on the occasions when I don't, I feel that the audience is not following me. Why is that so?

That is probably because they were still trying to digest the new information that was presented on the previous slide. So another thing to note, do not display all your points at one go. Instead, use the On-click' feature that can be found in PowerPoint's Animations section to capture your audience one point at a time. You will find that when you do this, they go away from the presentation with a better memory and understanding of it.

Remember to keep those pauses instead of trying to eliminate silence, because in doing so, you give your audience time to ponder over your points. To watch a demonstration on what I have just shared on YouTube, you may click here.

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