How to Master Difficult Responses with Confidence
When Someone Comes at You Rudely… … it is a wonderful opportunity to convince them. Perhaps even the best opportunity you will get within a speech, presentation, or conversation. Difficult questions – whether they are silly or overly clever, unfair or far-fetched, arrogant or irrelevant, or even completely justified – are a part of a speech like the proverbial wood shavings are to planing. They are the most challenging aspect we, as speakers, encounter – and at the same time, they are very common. Therefore, we must not shy away from difficult questions, but rather learn to master them. There are rhetorical killer strategies that are just as effective as the supposed killer questions themselves. Once you master them, no contribution to the discussion will throw you off track. There Really Are No Stupid Questions I am often asked how to avoid difficult questions. My answer is always the same: You don't! Answering is a matter of honor when communication is the goal. We can ruin the carefully built rhetorical effect of any speech if we simply bypass or laugh off annoying questions. Our audience expects to be taken seriously by us. If we do not meet this expectation, we unintentionally behave disrespectfully: A shy smile at the wrong moment can be misinterpreted as a condescending attitude. Therefore, the first and most important basic rule for dealing with difficult questions is: Adopt a respectful attitude towards every questioner by taking their question seriously and addressing their concern. Know Your Enemy: Difficult (Question) Types and How to Handle Them To respond constructively to difficult questions, we must first identify them. It is essential to listen carefully to the questioner – this is also an imperative of respectful communication. Listening correctly means extracting and interpreting the core of the question, that is, the actual concern of the questioner. Only then can you deliberately decide how to address them. Irrelevant Questions These seemingly silly questions may seem harmless, but they can be quite dangerous. You have just spent an hour struggling with a company presentation, and then this: "Why is your company logo slipping off the side of the brochure?" Uncomfortable, I know. But: If you react now with a smug smile or a frown, you suggest to the questioner that you do not consider their question worthy of a serious answer. Your reputation with the audience will plummet in a split second. If the question seems trivial, give it importance by addressing it and using it to your advantage: "Why do we opt for an unconventional style in our design?" This way, you create an opportunity to explain the thoughtful corporate design of your company. Make irrelevant questions useful in your favor by addressing a relevant aspect of the concern and using the opportunity to shine. And if the question simply does not relate to the topic at hand: Offer to answer it at a later time, perhaps after the presentation. Negative Questions Top managers and politicians are often confronted with so-called negative questions in press conferences. A popular question to government representatives, for example, is: "Why are you not fulfilling your election promise to lower taxes?" Where is the crux of this question? The core concern of the question revolves around "credibility." However, the politician can provide good reasons why tax cuts are not the preferred solution in the current political situation. To address this so-called negative question, they rephrase it into a positive question: "Why we prioritize budget consolidation at this time?" This way, they lay the groundwork for an active argumentation and avoid a passive defense out of distress. Paraphrase negative questions positively to create a constructive basis for your arguments.________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Series of Various Questions How can we react when a conversation partner bombards us with several very different questions? Quite simply: Choose one. Of course, you should not leave the other questions unanswered. But you can only answer one question at a time anyway. Therefore, it is strategically wise to first choose the question that you can best answer spontaneously. Once you have done that and cleared your mind, turn back to the questioner and acknowledge that you also want to take their other questions seriously: "You had another question." (stated as a statement, not a question!) You can then answer them at your own pace – if it is even necessary anymore. In many cases, the questioner will inform you that it's no longer relevant – because they themselves couldn't remember what their right brain hemisphere blurted out two minutes ago. What you must absolutely avoid: Confused probing like "What were the other questions again?" This conveys to the audience that you were not paying attention – and you would have fallen into the trap of disrespect. Answer complex chains of questions question by question, and confirm your interest in the questioner's further concerns in between. Statements Instead of Questions Such questions are good for testing their stability, especially after product presentations, by letting your counterpart catch you off guard: "You have told us a lot about the advantages of your product sensation, but I am skeptical if our customers are even open to such a thing. The market for such items is still new, and the risk seems too high for us." If you give up now, you raise suspicion that you are not convinced of your product. Take the concern of the conversation partner seriously here as well, but turn the destructive statement into a question to which you have a constructive answer: "What benefits would it have for you to immediately add our product to your range?" Then you can explain concisely why making a deal now would be beneficial for the customer. Don't fall into the trap of responding to destructive statement questions. Turn these conversation stoppers into constructive opportunities by turning them into questions that bring you back into the conversation. Questions You Have Already Answered Every speaker has experienced this: An inattentive listener asks a question that would be unnecessary if they had been paying attention. However, if you point this out to them, you embarrass them – and harm your own reputation in front of the audience. Please never demonstrate at such times that you are annoyed by the inattentiveness of the questioner by prefacing your answer with a snide remark like "As mentioned earlier" or "Again…" This is disrespectful and will antagonize the conversation partner. Instead, look at it from the positive side: This question is easy for you to answer because you have already prepared the answer. Seize the opportunity to summarize the key points of your presentation succinctly – but really briefly and to the point. An extensive repetition would punish those who have been listening. Answer questions that ignore what has already been said patiently and enthusiastically. Summarize only the key points succinctly and avoid clichéd redundancies. Questions to Which You Don't Know the Answer Nobody likes to admit when they don't know something. However, resist the temptation to somehow bluff your way through. No one knows everything. Offer to provide the answer to the questioner later and ask for their business card – this creates accountability. It becomes more challenging when the question directly relates to your statements, and you should know the answer, but you simply hadn't considered that aspect. In this case, you must answer – otherwise, you will appear evasive. However, if you guess randomly, even though you don't know the answer, you are taking an unpredictable risk. Instead, say something like: "I would have to estimate, and that wouldn't help you." Then steer the dialogue back to a related aspect that is relevant to the questioner, to which you can respond, for example: "What I can tell you for sure is…" Answer difficult questions immediately, and do not avoid problems raised by your listeners. Remember: You don't have to know everything. You just need to find a relevant answer. How to Effectively Disarm Killer Questions There is a remedy against even the most threatening of killer questions. If you learn how to use it, you can turn even the most uncomfortable situations into a usable basis for argumentation to present your best arguments. To conclude, I will share with you three golden rules, condensed from the above advice, to help you answer difficult questions confidently:- Earn the respect of the questioner by taking every question seriously and answering every question.
- In difficult questions, identify the core concern and place it in a perspective from which you can respond constructively.
- Paraphrase negatively phrased killer questions positively and use them as a springboard for your arguments.
