Why your audience tunes out

How to meet people where they are at

We've all been in those sessions.

There's just too much information thrown at you.

The session you were so excited about has turned into a dud, feeling more like a dry lecture than an engaging experience. “I guess I'm not going to get much out of this after all.”

A monotone voice, rushing through an endless, mind-numbing stream of slides with no check-ins, breakouts, or discussion.

A total snooze-fest.

The worst part is that it could have been avoided.

The curriculum conundrum

People like to share their passions with each other. Even if it’s not our job, we love teaching others what we’ve learned.

As regular readers know by now, I can’t stop talking about the power of listening in conversations—like movie lovers eagerly dissecting and discussing every film they watch, and foodies obsessively sharing their latest culinary adventures.

We simply love to share what we are passionate about.

In many cases our interest, experience and passion for a subject have led us to become creators, consultants, or educators.

But that passion can often lead us into a trap.

We love spending time with our subject and tinkering with our session materials, but we run into trouble when our curricular excitement crowds out the perspective of the learner (you know, the person you’re hoping will actually learn a thing or two from your session).

Even if you are an engaging, dynamic, and attentive session host, you still might be losing the hearts and minds of your audience.

Despite your enthusiasm, if you’re not able to adapt, the chances of losing their attention are still high.

I bet I could find some juicy statistics to back this up, but I don’t think it’s necessary because all this makes sense on a gut level.

Information overload

As learners, we can only absorb information we're ready for. When the material exceeds our current level of understanding, we lose track and our learning is halted.

We've all been there: your mind starts to wander into a dreamland of thoughts and distractions (like tomorrow’s to-do list, a conversation with a friend, and whether penguins have knees), completely missing the rest of the information being presented.

As the teacher, a learner's loss of engagement is very subtle and difficult to pick up. You're especially blind to it when you're in the heat of the moment, showcasing your beloved topic.

Without realizing it, you’ve begun overloading folks with data they can’t process.

When the student isn’t ready, the teacher disappears…

Meet them where they are at

During your session, it's helpful to step back and assess if someone is ready to receive your information. Quickly and accurately understanding where they're at and adapting in real time is a powerful skill to ensure that you’re guiding them effectively.

How do you do this?

By asking questions (surprise, surprise).

Now I’m not suggesting you just start randomly firing off obscure questions at your unsuspecting listeners. There’s a structure to this.

I’ve had the opportunity to both coach clients and host workshops for a while now. This has allowed me to experiment with what coaching frameworks and skills work best in these cases.

There’s one framework that stands out for this specific situation.

The EPE framework.

Check-in and gauge

EPE stands for Elicit-Provide-Elicit and it consists of three simple but powerful steps.

1) Elicit: Test the waters. Where are they at? What do they know already? Asking questions like: ‘What do you know about …?’ or ‘ What strategies have you used before?’

2) Provide: Share the core insight or information you’re trying to convey. Importantly, make sure it is concise and relevant to their needs, and phrase it in a way that makes clear it’s for their consideration, such as saying, 'Here’s something that might be valuable to you, …' or simply ‘ Consider this …’

3) Elicit: Check what they make of it. What do they understand about it now? Who knows how they interpret what you’ve shared, making sure they’ve got the point is crucial. You could ask: ‘How does that land for you?’ or ‘What do you make of this?’

As you can see, EPE is designed to ensure you attune what you share to the person you’re sharing it with. The information you gather from them is essential to make sure that what you’re providing makes sense to them and is actually ‘receivable’.

You are effectively ‘sandwiching’ the information you provide between two questions that are all about extracting relevant information from them.

Here’s an example of how this could look in practice. Let’s say you give workshops on how to write stronger essays with more audience engagement. It could look something like this:

• You (elicit): “How are you currently structuring your essay?”

• Student: “I begin with an introduction that provides background information and then move into the main points, focusing on presenting the information clearly and ending with a summary.”

• You (provide): “One approach to capture and maintain your readers' interest is to start with a strong hook, such as a surprising fact, question, or story, and to finish with a compelling conclusion that includes a call-to-action.”

• You (elicit): “What are your thoughts on these strategies for your current article? How, if at all, might they fit into your writing process?”

• Student: “Ah, I see how something like that would increase engagement. I think in this case starting my essay with a surprising statistic could immediately draw my readers in, and ending with a clear call-to-action would give them a concrete step to take next. I actually have some ideas for that now that you mention it.

EPE is part of Motivational Interviewing (which I write about here). It was originally designed to actively involve a coaching client in the process of information exchange, enhancing their engagement, understanding, and motivation for change.

Through my work outside of coaching, I’ve come to realize this has many applications in other fields, like increasing learning retention, session engagement and avoiding information overwhelm.

If you're an educator of any kind, EPE is a secret weapon to transform your sessions into dynamic and engaging experiences. Putting potential snooze-fests behind you for good.