I’ve wanted to write this blog for a long time because I’m tired of sitting through conference presentations by brilliant people who make little effort to help their audience understand them.
They pile on technical details, toss around acronyms, and miss the mark entirely. Then they leave the stage looking smug and satisfied, unaware that they had lost the room 30 minutes earlier. They think they aced it but bombed from the audience’s perspective.
I call it the Curse of Competence, being brilliant but boring. You know so much about a subject yet forget to make it accessible, relevant, and worth remembering. Your expertise may be getting in the way because you’re so familiar with your material that you overlook what it takes for someone else to understand it or to simply care.
And sometimes, you deliver the same presentation to every audience, taking for granted that what worked for your coworkers will work equally well for employees, customers, board members, community leaders, or peers in other industries. It rarely does.
The challenge is anticipating how much your audience knows, what they need, what interests them, and how much unfamiliar information they can process. A room full of highly intelligent people can still be a room full of beginners in your subject.
Clarity is part of competence
Making a complex idea understandable takes skill and judgment. You must decide what to include, what to explain, and what to leave for questions. That doesn’t mean talking down to people but giving them a ramp onto your subject.
Consider this statement:
“Our CRM integration will improve attribution across the funnel.”
That may be perfectly clear for colleagues in marketing, but for another audience, try:
“We will be able to see which marketing activities bring us customers, so we can make better spending decisions.”
The second version gives listeners something concrete to understand and remember.
Before your next presentation, use these seven steps to check whether your message fits the people receiving it:
1. Build an audience profile.
Go beyond job titles and demographics. Ask:
- What do these people already know about this subject?
- What might be unfamiliar or easily misunderstood?
- What problem or decision brings them into the room?
- What concerns or objections might they have?
Ask the organizer for specifics. “Tell me about the audience” is a start. “What would make this presentation useful to them?” is better.
2. Define what they should take away.
Complete this sentence:
“When I finish, I want this audience to think ___ feel ___ and do ___.”
For example: “They should understand (think) why the project is delayed, (feel) that they have options, and (do) choose between extending the deadline and reducing the scope.”
Use that sentence to guide your edits. Material that doesn’t support the outcome may belong in an appendix or a follow-up conversation.
3. Give them a reason to listen.
Review your opening. Does it begin with your credentials, organizational history, or technical background? Or does it establish something the audience cares about? Start with the question, consequence, or opportunity that makes your subject relevant to them. A finance team, a customer group, and a room of engineers may need different openings for the same project.
4. Audit your language.
Highlight every acronym, technical term, abstract phrase, and reference that assumes prior knowledge. For each one, decide: remove it, replace it, or explain it. Spelling out an acronym may not be enough. People can hear the full name and still have no idea what it means or why it matters. Keep necessary technical language but give listeners a plain-language explanation before asking them to follow a more detailed discussion.
5. Check the path and pace.
Can listeners follow your reasoning without making leaps? Before showing a solution, establish the problem. Before presenting a chart, tell people what to look for. After explaining a difficult idea, pause and state its practical meaning.
Read your script aloud. Notice where unfamiliar concepts arrive in quick succession. Those sections may need an example, a shorter explanation, or less content.
6. Test with someone who resembles the audience.
A knowledgeable colleague may unconsciously fill in the gaps in your presentation. Find someone closer to your intended listeners to evaluate your content.
You’ve heard the advice: “Tell it so a fourth grader can understand it,” or “Try explaining it to your grandmother.” The point is to assess whether your explanation works for someone without your specialized knowledge. Of course, your grandmother may know more about the subject than you do.
Choose a test listener who reflects your audience’s familiarity with the topic. Ask them to identify your main point, why it would matter to them and what they would do with that knowledge. Their answers will help you align your content.
7. Test your slides and delivery
Once you’ve adjusted your content for the audience, rehearse aloud with your slides. Record yourself or invite your test listener to watch.
Check both what they see and hear:
- Slides: Is the text readable? Do charts have a clear takeaway? Can you simplify anything that competes with your narrative?
- Pace: Do you slow down for unfamiliar ideas and pause long enough for people to absorb them?
- Delivery: Do your voice, expression, and gestures reinforce your message? Are you connecting with listeners or reading from the screen?
The curse of competence is believing that because you’re the expert, the topic is clear to everyone else. Breaking that curse takes a willingness to question your assumptions, adapt your material, and rehearse with the audience in mind.
Brilliant but boring is a missed opportunity. Make your brilliance accessible and give your audience something they will always remember.
