What is wrong about the pattern tell them what you are going to tell, tell and then tell what you told
1 The Problem with Repetition
If you have visited a communication seminar, you may have come across the old communication formula: “tell them what you’re going to tell, tell them, and then tell them what you told”. This formulaic approach to communication relies on repetition, which often flattens engagement.
Beginners will find this perfectly suitable, as it clarifies points. However, it lacks emotional impact and quickly becomes predictable.
Today’s audiences, that are subjected to constant information overload, need more than just facts: they want stories, surprises, and insights that cut through the noise.
Flight safety announcements illustrate this principle perfectly. Traditional ones, filled with the same old safety reminders, cause passengers to tune out. But when airlines add humor, dramatize scenarios, or weave in storytelling, they break the pattern and seize attention.
2 The Power of Surprise and Interest
Humans adapt to new consistent patterns rapidly. To constantly surprise, you must break expectations and thus trigger genuine focus.Take a car add that ends with a tragic accident, and is in fact an add for road safety.
Surprise instantly disrupts the brain’s “guessing machine” and forces people to think actively (raising eyebrows, dropping jaws).
Interest keeps us engaged once we’ve been surprised. Conspiracy theories and gossip thrive because they create knowledge gaps that we feel compelled to fill.
The challenge for every communicator with an important message: strategic “planned unexpectedness” should strengthen a core message rather than just generate cheap thrills.
3 Breaking and Rebuilding the Guessing Machine
Surprise alone is not enough. To make ideas stick, you must first break people’s assumptions and then help them rebuild their mental models.
Begin by clarifying the one thing you want them to remember, then expose an unexpected truth that challenges their beliefs. Present it in a way that forces them to pause and reconsider. Finally, guide them toward a realization that feels obvious in hindsight.
Psychologists call this obvious hindsight “postdictability.” In contrast, common sense, the enemy of sticky messages, lulls people into complacency. By deliberately violating it, you engage the audience’s deeper reasoning processes (their “System 2”) and lead them to an “I could have guessed that” moment once the surprise is explained. Here again, the challenge is to do it without descending into gimmicks. Suprise alone is not enough
4 The Gap Theory of Curiosity
Once you have your audience’s attention, the challenge becomes to keep it. You need to kindle their curiosity. Whenever we perceive a gap between what we know and what we want to know, we experience a mental itch we’re driven to scratch.
To harness this, open with a puzzle or a provocative claim: “There’s an invisible chemical in your home—and it might kill you right now.”
You can suggest that someone else holds crucial information, hint at unresolved mysteries, or you can challenge the audience to predict an outcome.
This approach works in everything from sports events to fundraising campaigns, even daily politics.
There are two extreme cases: people who think they know everything and those who know nothing. For the first, make them publically commit to a prediction. This makes them more curious as they have had an active say. The second group is best told some points that act as a reference system on their blank canvas.
Instead of spoon-feeding the facts in chronological order, start with a haunting question or puzzling hypothesis. Actively hide information to reveal it later. Use mystery in your presentation. Only after you’ve sparked curiosity do you reveal the facts. Ensure your audience stays hooked until the gap is closed and your message sticks.