This is one in a series from my earlier post "10 Things You Can Do To Help Your Audience Listen Better."
When you’re an audience member, listening to a speaker, do you realize how you are taking in information? How are you processing what's being said? How does it go from the speaker's lips to your brain?
Perhaps you’ve never given it much thought. If it's a particularly boring presenter, perhaps you thought nothing was going in. But in reality, there's a lot more than think.
Psychologists believe individuals are bombarded with as many as 10,000-12,000 sensory stimuli per second from the environment around them. According to Suzette Haden Elgin, in her book Business Speak, “If attention was paid to every one of those sensations, the result would be information overload. To avoid this, humans reduce the incoming information to manageable quantity, noticing some and discarding others, remembering some for short-term (working) memory, indexing other for long-term memory storage.” Elsewhere, she continued: “No later than the age of 5, we discover which one of the senses works best for (us), which is more useful to process information.”
People learn visually. They have to see something to process its value.
People learn aurally. They have to hear something to understand it.
People learn by reading and writing. They have to read or write notes to absorb its insight.
People learn by doing and touching (called ‘kinaesthetic’). They have to be active with the information, to massage it to analyze it.
His theory is neatly described in the acronym VARK.
Think about what was going on the last time you were speaking or presenting. What was the audience doing? Their behaviour tells you a lot.
The Visual People ... were mesmerized by the slides, especially the ones using large visuals. In written reports, they responded to charts and graphs which were colourful and bright. When they spoke or explained something to the group, they drew pictures. They didn't have one black-ink pen or one yellow highlighter. They brought several coloured pens, pencils, markers and highlighters. You can tell how successful you are with Visual People by the volume of doodles specific to your topic drawn in their notes.
The Aural People ... simply sat and listened. In a word: they were focused. Their eyes didn't leave you, except to perhaps follow a gesture, when you directed them to something in the report, on a slide, on the flipchart. As your voice flexed, its rhythm and cadence changing, they followed you even more intently, often nodding their heads. At breaks, they reflected on things you said, repeating what you said verbatim. Hearing statements paraphrased in different ways is exceedingly helpful to them. This is the type of person who also pushes aside a report and asks, "Just talk me through what's in this."
The Reading and Writing People ... spent their entire time reading the slides or hand-outs, and then writing notes. They brought extra pens and pencils - not to mention post-it notes, flags and erasers. Sometimes you were convinced they were writing down exactly what you are saying. I had one person ask me for my own talking points. I gave them my notes, and they took them and made more notes. Did I care? Not a whit. The more notes they take, the better. The more notes they take, their value of the hand-outs increase substantially.
The Kinaesthetic People ... didn't come alive until they got then chance to hold something in their hands, move to a flipchart, or be part of an exercise. They reached for hand-outs, mood boards, samples or storyboards as if hungry. Their hands were itching to get started. You can tell they think by doing. They may suggest impatience, but to them, they're simply excited to put your presentation into practice. You can tell how successful you are with Kinaesthetic People by their physical involvement with your presentation.
If you're interested in your preferred style, take the quick assessment on Fleming’s website, here. You will probably find you have one primary and one secondary preference. This also means that if a presentation or conversation is devoid of either preferred style, you will have to change your behaviour to a less primary preference - but you won't like it. In fact, you may find it difficult to process or recall information.
At the same time, you yourself write and present in the style you prefer. The tipping point is not to over-do your preferred style in your conversation because you will make it difficult for people who do not share your preference to listen and process your ideas.
And last, you will never have an entire audience of one preference. What you should do is play to all preferences. Make your presentation as VARK as possible. Give information to your audience in ways which touch or use all styles.
How can you sell your ideas visually, with colourful pictures, interesting graphics and memorable artwork?
How can you sell your ideas by using the passion in your voice?
How can you sell your ideas by the written word, using descriptive language, alliteration and active voice?
How can you sell your ideas by getting your audience involved with the idea, by touching it, playing with it, experiencing it for themselves?
