You're facing misunderstandings in a diverse audience Q&A. How can you effectively navigate and resolve them?

When I've experienced this, I've used the following framework to clarify and resolve: 1) I thank the person for asking the question and engaging. 2) I summarize the question back to them to ensure I've got the right idea in my head (prevent any further misunderstanding). 3) I communicate the key point in a new example. Sometimes I even incorporate two examples to showcase the key point in different ways and increase my chances of connecting. 4) I ask if this additional context clarified the question. 5) If this topic comes up again later in the deck, I'll circle back to the earlier conversation and confirm the key points again. Sometimes the misunderstanding is because people need to hear something more than once to fully digest it.

A diverse audience may consist of people from different geographies, with different experiences, from different functions, with different educational levels, and so on. Each comes with their own perspective, different abilities to grasp a concept and their own way to express. Communication thus becomes tricky with such a diverse set of people. Dealing with such a situation requires: Understanding of linguistics – plays a major role in interpreting their thoughts. Your own ability to articulate – the same idea in different ways with relevant examples or stories helps clarify. Asking pointed questions – for your own understanding and checking with the audience if they are clear. Repeating – at the cost of redundancy and repetition

Try to incorporate this perspective moving forward: these questions, or potential misunderstandings, are feedback to help you enhance your communications skills. We get so use to the content / subject matter, we forget the audience is not as familiar as we are. These questions remind us of how we can enhance our ability to connect with diverse audience groups.

How we talk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural experiences. A lack of appreciation for variations in language and culture could hinder your connection with the audience. Pace of speaking, length of pauses or even the use of humour varies from region to region. Speaking slowly and clearly, minimising the use of foreign words and getting the pronunciation right are some ways to get across with clarity and increase your acceptance for a meaningful discussion.

When you are commutating something brand new or highly complex, visuals help guide the audience through the explanation. Make it part of your practice to run through the presentation with someone who isn't familiar with the content and get their input. It is always good to have back up slides / concepts in the appendix as a tool to incorporate if needed. Run an A/B test with your communication. Run it with one audience without the visual and run it again with the visual. See what difference you receive in terms of engagement and connection.

Making yourself available for follow up is a great way to show value to your audience, especially in a networking situation. This also creates value for you. This one on one follow up is amazing feedback potential for your next session.

A practice I have always followed is to offer to meet with the audience post the event to address confusions that might have resulted out of communication barriers. While some in the audience are extroverted and have no qualms in shooting at you questions of all kinds, many are shy of asking in a larger gathering for fear of appearing ignorant or because of their inability to articulate. For such audiences a one-on-one appears safe. Alternatively, I provide my contact details for them to connect with me. This practice has always made me appear as genuinely interested in helping people get the most out of the session.

Q&A sessions have produced some great moments of revelation for me in terms of my ability to empathise, listen attentively or to lay bare my lack of preparedness for tough questions. Most of the misunderstandings I realise happen because of poor listening and linguistic differences. Jumping to conclusions, making assumptions or missing out on some crucial piece of information are deeply rooted to these. Every debrief of a Q& A session has unraveled some flaw or other that needed fixing and has caused me to alter my way of communicating in terms of adapting my style and strategy.