There is an interesting question at the heart of every act of public communication: who, or what, should matter most?
The person speaking? The message being delivered? Or the people listening?
At first, the answer might seem obvious. A speaker needs to know their audience. Anyone who has spent time studying communication has heard some version of the advice that great speakers “put the audience first.” It sounds sensible, and in many respects it is. A presentation is unlikely to succeed if the person delivering it has no idea who is listening, what they care about or why they should pay attention.
But the question becomes more complicated when we look at communication closely.
What happens when the audience wants to hear something that is not necessarily true? What happens when a speaker understands the audience perfectly but has little of substance to say? What happens when the message is powerful but the person delivering it has no credibility? And what happens when the speaker becomes so focused on pleasing the audience that the communication loses its purpose?
These questions expose a problem with the way public speaking is sometimes taught. We tend to treat the speaker, the message and the audience as separate components that can be improved independently. Become a better speaker. Develop a stronger message. Understand your audience.
All of that is useful.
But communication is not a collection of separate skills. It is a relationship between them.
The speaker gives the message a human voice. The message gives the speaker something worth saying. The audience gives the communication its context and its consequence.
Take any one of those away and something important changes.
A speaker without a meaningful message can become little more than a performer. A message without consideration for its audience can become information without relevance. An audience that becomes the sole focus can turn communication into an exercise in approval-seeking.
The challenge, then, is not deciding which of the three is most important.
It is understanding what each one is responsible for.
A great deal of public-speaking advice begins with the speaker. Stand confidently. Make eye contact. Vary your tone. Use purposeful gestures. Tell stories. Avoid filler words. Project your voice.
All of these things matter. The way a speaker delivers a message affects whether people are willing to listen to it.
But there is a danger in making delivery the centre of communication.
A speaker can become so concerned with how they are performing that they lose sight of what the performance is for.
They begin to think about whether their posture looks confident rather than whether their argument is clear. They worry about whether the audience is impressed rather than whether the audience understands. They focus on remembering the next line rather than noticing that the room has become confused.
This is one of the peculiar traps of public speaking. The more conscious we become of ourselves as speakers, the easier it is to forget the people we are speaking to.
The audience does not need to watch us succeed at public speaking.
They need something from the communication.
That something may be information, clarity, reassurance, inspiration, a new perspective or a reason to act. But whatever it is, the speaker’s performance is ultimately a means to an end.
This does not make the speaker unimportant. In fact, the opposite is true.
The person delivering the message is part of the message.
Audiences do not only listen to words. They assess the person behind them. They notice whether the speaker appears prepared, whether they understand the subject, whether their confidence seems earned and whether their behaviour is consistent with what they are saying.
The same message can therefore produce very different reactions depending on who delivers it.
A recommendation from someone with deep expertise may immediately invite serious consideration. The same recommendation from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated poor judgement may be met with scepticism.
This is why credibility matters so much in communication.
The speaker is not merely a delivery mechanism. They are part of the evidence the audience uses to decide whether the message deserves attention.
But credibility alone is not enough.
A highly credible person can still give a poor presentation.
They can have decades of experience and still bury their central argument under unnecessary detail. They can know their subject intimately and still explain it in a way that makes sense only to themselves.
This is where the message becomes important.
There is a difference between having something to say and knowing what needs to be said.
Experts often struggle with this distinction because expertise creates abundance. The more someone knows, the more material they have available. Every statistic seems relevant. Every example appears useful. Every qualification feels necessary.
Soon, the presentation becomes an inventory of everything the speaker knows.
The audience may leave impressed by the volume of information but unable to identify the point.
That is not a failure of knowledge. It is a failure of communication.
A message needs discipline.
It needs a centre.
The speaker should be able to answer a deceptively difficult question: If the audience remembers only one thing from this conversation, what should it be?
The answer is not necessarily the title of the presentation. It is the idea that gives everything else its purpose.
Once that idea is clear, evidence becomes easier to select. Stories become easier to choose. Examples become more purposeful. Slides become less crowded. The speaker knows what deserves emphasis and what can be left out.
Good communication is often as much about deciding what not to say as it is about deciding what to say.
Yet even a well-crafted message can fail if it is developed in isolation from the audience.
A message does not exist in a vacuum.
People bring their own experiences, expectations, assumptions and concerns into every communication. They do not arrive as blank pages waiting to be written upon. They interpret what they hear through what they already know and believe.
Consider a leader announcing a major organisational change.
The leader may be focused on the strategic rationale. The audience may be thinking about something much more immediate: What does this mean for my job?
A scientist may want to explain the evidence behind a discovery. The audience may first need to understand why the discovery matters.
A business owner may be excited about a new product. Potential customers may be more interested in whether it solves a problem they actually have.
The speaker may have a perfectly reasonable idea of what the presentation is about.
The audience may have a completely different idea of what the presentation needs to answer.
This is why audience awareness is not a superficial public-speaking technique. It is an act of intellectual discipline.
It forces the speaker to step outside their own perspective and consider the communication from another person’s position.
What does this audience already know?
What are they likely to misunderstand?
What do they care about?
What are they sceptical about?
What question will they probably ask the moment I finish?
These questions can transform the message.
But there is an important caveat.
Putting the audience first does not mean giving the audience whatever it wants.
That would be an easy conclusion, but it would also be a dangerous one.
Great communicators are not merely audience pleasers. Sometimes the responsibility of the speaker is precisely to say something the audience does not want to hear.
A leader may have to tell employees that a comfortable strategy is no longer working.
A consultant may have to challenge a client’s assumptions.
A researcher may have to present findings that contradict what people expected.
A speaker may have to confront an audience with an uncomfortable reality.
In such situations, the speaker cannot simply ask, “What will they like?”
The better question is, “What do they need to understand, and how can I help them understand it?”
That distinction separates audience-centred communication from people-pleasing.
Audience-centred communication is not about surrendering your message to the audience.
It is about shaping the way you communicate that message so the audience has a genuine opportunity to understand it.
The distinction matters because persuasion is not the same as agreement.
A great speaker does not necessarily leave the audience thinking exactly what they thought before the presentation. Sometimes the measure of successful communication is that people leave thinking differently.
That may require challenge.
It may require evidence.
It may require a story that makes an abstract issue personal.
It may even require the speaker to slow down and allow the audience to wrestle with an uncomfortable idea rather than rushing towards a convenient conclusion.
This is where the relationship between speaker, message and audience becomes particularly interesting.
The speaker has a responsibility to the message.
The message has a responsibility to the truth, the purpose and the argument.
The speaker has a responsibility to the audience.
And the audience has a role in determining whether the message has actually landed.
None of these responsibilities can simply be handed over to another.
A speaker who focuses exclusively on the audience may become agreeable but forgettable.
A speaker who focuses exclusively on the message may become informative but inaccessible.
A speaker who focuses exclusively on themselves may become impressive but disconnected.
The strongest communicators manage the tension.
They know their subject without becoming trapped inside it. They understand their audience without becoming controlled by it. They develop a distinctive presence without making the presentation an exhibition of themselves.
That balance is harder than it sounds.
It requires the speaker to move constantly between three perspectives.
What am I trying to communicate?
Who am I communicating it to?
How am I showing up as the person communicating it?
The first protects the message.
The second protects relevance.
The third protects credibility.
Together, they create the conditions for communication to work.
Perhaps this is why some speakers who appear less polished can nevertheless be remarkably effective. They may not have the most elaborate slides or the most theatrical delivery, but they understand the relationship between what they are saying and the people hearing it.
They know when an example is needed.
They know when an explanation has gone too far.
They know when to pause.
They know when the audience needs a challenge rather than reassurance.
They know when their own experience adds value and when it is simply taking up space.
Most importantly, they understand that speaking is not the same as communicating.
Speaking is something the speaker does.
Communication is something that happens between people.
That distinction changes the purpose of preparation.
Instead of asking only, “How do I make this presentation better?”, the speaker begins to ask more useful questions.
What does this audience need from this conversation?
What is the clearest expression of the idea?
What evidence will make the argument credible?
What assumptions am I making about the people listening?
What might cause them to disengage?
What do I want them to understand when I am finished?
These questions lead to better presentations because they force the speaker to think beyond the performance.
And yet, there is still no universal answer to the original question.
Should the speaker come first?
Sometimes.
If the speaker lacks credibility, even a strong message may struggle.
Should the message come first?
Often.
Without substance, communication becomes performance.
Should the audience come first?
Absolutely, when considering relevance and reception.
But not at the expense of truth or purpose.
Perhaps the better answer is that purpose should come first.
Before the speaker. Before the slides. Before the carefully rehearsed opening.
What are we trying to achieve?
Once that is clear, the three elements begin to find their proper place.
The speaker becomes the person who can carry the message with credibility and conviction.
The message becomes the substance that gives the communication meaning.
The audience becomes the people for whom that meaning must become relevant.
This also changes how we think about great speaking.
The best speakers are not necessarily those who dominate a room. Nor are they necessarily the most charismatic, the most eloquent or the most technically polished.
They are the people who can make the right things matter to the right people at the right moment.
They understand that attention is not the same as engagement. Information is not the same as understanding. Agreement is not the same as persuasion. And confidence is not the same as credibility.
Communication sits somewhere in the space between all of these things.
The speaker brings the human element.
The message brings the substance.
The audience brings the meaning.
And when those three are aligned, something happens that no amount of presentation technique can manufacture on its own. People begin to see the subject not simply as something the speaker knows, but as something that matters to them.
That is the point at which communication becomes consequential.
So, the next time you prepare to speak, perhaps do not begin with the question, “How do I want to come across?”
And do not begin only with, “What information do I need to present?”
Instead, ask three questions.
What do I need to say?
Who needs to hear it?
And what does that audience need from me in order to understand it, trust it and do something with it?
The first question gives you the message.
The second gives you the audience.
The third gives you the role of the speaker.
None should be ignored. None should dominate unnecessarily.
Because great communication is not a competition between the person speaking, the words being spoken and the people listening.
It is the quality of the relationship between all three that determines whether the message travels.
At Priori Orators, we believe that powerful communication goes beyond learning how to speak confidently or present professionally. It is about developing the judgement to know what to say, the awareness to understand who you are saying it to and the presence to make the message worth listening to.
The speaker gives the message a voice. The message gives the speaker a purpose. The audience gives both a reason to matter.
