Why Filler Words are actually a Good Thing!
Presentation Skills Myths and Realities #1
It’s a simple fact of life that everyone of us communicates best in relaxed conversation. So easy to recall what we discussed with a colleague over a coffee in Starbucks. And yet that same colleague presents in the Boardroom with an array of PowerPoint slides, and, chances are, most of that’s forgotten by the very next day.
So it follows that when presenting, it’s best to be as close to one’s natural relaxed self as possible, to be conversational.. Trouble is – besides the likelihood of being rather nervous – most people have no idea how or why a relaxed conversation works. They only know it does!
On top of that, there’s a plethora of information these days on social media on how to present well. Much of this advice – albeit well-intentioned – is not helpful. Indeed, it’s often flawed.
Amongst all the misunderstanding as to what makes for a great presentation, there are 8 Myths that need to be laid to rest.
Here’s the first one: Myth 1: Disfluencies (better known as ‘ums’, or ‘ers’) are a mark of poor communication.
Many people agonise at trying to remove these sounds when presenting. But the truth is, they are completely natural, a key component of relaxed conversation.
Research done at Stirling and Edinburgh universities discovered that disfluencies force a listener to pay attention. Volunteers were asked to listen to a series of sentences, including a number with ‘ums’ and ‘ers’. Up to an hour later, volunteers could recall 62% of the words where there had been disfluencies, but only 55% where there had been none.
‘A disfluency is an interruption to the predicted ritual of things, ‘says Dr Martin Corley, of Edinburgh University’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. ‘It’s like we’re saying to ourselves “I’d better pay attention now, because what I thought was going to happen isn’t going to happen”’.
That said, speakers should avoid having too many disfluencies when presenting. There is often a tendency to replace pauses with a variety of sounds or words, such as ‘OK’, ‘right’ or ‘like’. Doing that is probably worse than having no disfluencies at all. One thing that can not be left out of communication is silence.
