Can You Hear Me Now?

Barriers to clear communication

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

What is your reaction to the picture above? I cringe because I see someone yelling unnecessarily. There is a mike there and so they shouldn’t have to yell, but they obviously think they should. It reminds me what many people think of communication. They think it’s just a matter of speaking louder. They think that people will hear better and understand more if you shout.

They are incorrect. Now it is true that many times people have trouble hearing because of low volume. I know people who have an easy to listen to voice but also are very quiet. In normal conversation it is fine, but in front of a group their message might get muffled by the low volume. If listeners also have hearing loss or the room has bad accoustics this can futher degrade the ability to hear. So in those cases the speaker needs to raise their voice.

But there is more to effective communication than just volume. I have heard many concerts where the vocalists demonstrated a lack of knowledgy of mike usage. Their mike was powerful but they misuded it. They did what I call “eating the mike”, speaking so close to it that there was distortion and feedback, so even though it was loud you couldn’t understand the words. Output of a mike is only as good as the input. Version of computer phrase “garbage in, garbage out”.

Projection is important. You have to speak so that people in the back of the room can hear you. Speaking (like singing) is effective more if you deliver from your diaphram. Speaking or singing from your throat or. chest lacks support and will not carry.

Enunciation is also important. The pronunciation of words is just as important as the choice of words. My mom would often tell me to exaggerate my pronouciation. She said it would probably sound weird to me but the audience would understand it just fine. Perhaps she was telling me I tended to mumble? But it works. So take care to clearly enunciate your words so that your audience will hear better.

Pauses are also important. There is a warning in humor — “don’t step on your laugh lines” -meaning if the audience is laughing, don’t be speaking. You need to allow the humor to resonate before you proceed. It applies also to serious material. Audiences can only absorb so much info at a time. If you present an important message bit, pause to let it sink in before you go on to the next point. Otherwise your audience will fall behind and get confused. Think of them jotting notes as you speak. It takes longer to write than to speak, so allow space. Not only that but the pauses will help you eliminate filler words, especially if you are trying to remember what the next point is.

Avoid jargon. Every industry or profession haas it. The use of abbreviations, acronyms, and industry-specific terminology can leave your listeners confused. In Toastmasters, for example, the use of DTM can confuse new members. It stands for Distinguished Toastmaster, the highest educational award in the organization, though often refered to as Don’t Time Me. It is a prestigious award, which only about 6% of the members ever achieve, but to newbies it is just a three letter abbreviation. Within organizations we tend to use jargon as a sort of shorthand to communicate quickly, but need to remember that not all people know the lingo. Heck, most people would not recognize the origin of the term ‘short hand’, nor could understand something written in it. It is almost like we are speaking a foreign language.

All these things can complicate communication and we need to remember the message needs to not only be spoken clearly but also needs obstacles to be removed so that the listeners hear and understand the message.

And going back to the picture, if the speaker is talking in a manner that makes the audience cringe, they may not get the message he wants, or may understand it to be offensive and reject it.