"On the Spot Thinking": 5 Essentials Tips
You're in a meeting, your boss, your boss's boss, client representatives and everyone else important to your career has their eyes on you. You've been asked a question, and you can't answer. You prepared, you know the information backwards and forwards, but this is a question that you didn't anticipate. No matter how many pages of notes and data you have to shuffle through you know that the answer doesn't lie in them. All eyes are fixed on you, hoping for an "on the spot" creative answer, and all you can do is break into a cold sweat.
Then a subordinate raises his hand and even with less experience and preparation he (seemingly fearlessly) gave an answer that everyone loved. As you go back to your office to lick your wounds you can't help but wonder "How'd he do that?" and "How can I be like that?"
First, there are five things to remember for the next time all eyes in a room turn to you for an answer you weren't prepared to give:
- Relax
- Organize mentally the information you have
- Stall effectively
- Clearly state your response
- Summarize
It's a lot to remember, and in a very short and pressure filled amount of time, right? Not if you've prepared your brain to organize calmly under pressure.
Think of the concert pianist. Years ago scientists calculated the amount of time it took the human brain to send a signal to the finger to hit a piano key. Then they observed famous concert pianists and realized that the amount of notes they were hitting per second was not humanly possible. They hooked up these pianists to their machine and realized that the brains of the piano players were not sending one signal per note, they were sending one signal for entire groups of notes. The human brain can be trained to do several things at once, you simply need to practice.
Here are tips for how to train your brain to do those five "on the spot" thinking things automatically.
1. Relax
Breathe deeply. Practice receiving an unexpected question and give yourself two or three deep breaths before you respond. We think silence is awkward, but two breaths is actually a much shorter amount of time than you'll perceive. Train yourself to embrace the silence.
2. Organize
During these breaths, mentally scan what you know. You're prepared so this won't take much time. If there's any relevant data it'll come to you quickly if you stay relaxed.
3. Stall
It may still take a few more seconds to concoct an answer. If you appear nervous, stare at the ground and say "ummmm, uhhhh" it will be obvious. Effective ways of stalling are: repeat the question, ask a question which narrows the focus, or ask for clarification. You may already know the answer, remember, you're just stalling convincingly.
4. Be Clear
Once you have an answer, don't speak quickly or appear nervous. Look around at the whole room and calmly explain your point and why. Don't worry that it's not perfectly articulated. Worry will only hurt your confidence; your boss knows they're asking for something off the top of your head.
5. Summarize
With "on the spot" thinking you'll need to summarize. Don't be embarrassed that you weren't perfect immediately. Once you've heard yourself it'll be easy to summarize in a clearer way, as long as you've been relaxed and focused throughout.
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