Be careful when you count out your points

At The Buckley School web site on May 10, 2019 there was a useful article titled Questionable presentation advice:  count out your points. Enumerating your ideas is useful because it shows your plan and guides your audience from one idea to the next. As shown above by the auctioneer selling a pitchfork, when you have just four points it is easy for both the audience and you to get a handle on each of them.

There are pitfalls though. First, a speaker might promise some number of points but not deliver them distinctly so the audience becomes confused.

Second, the speaker might fail to deliver all the points he said he would. (That might also come from bad planning).

Even worse he might keep adding additional ones. There is a classic comedy sketch on Monty Python’s Flying Circus where the Spanish Inquisition appears and their leader says:

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear, fear and surprise. Our two weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency. Our three weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope. Our four…Amongst our weapons…”   

Third, when there are multiple speakers on a program the tendency to enumerate can be contagious and its repeating bore the audience.

Fourth, the speaker might promise an overwhelming number of points (perhaps 24) and actually deliver them. Then, as shown above, the speech will have a structure like a comb. Without more of a hierarchy the audience can get hopelessly lost. Back on March 22, 2011I blogged about Speech geometry: lines, circles, forks, and combs.

The auctioneer image came from the Library of Congress.