Hi Folks!

Ever been working and had a number of tough questions fired across the table?  In today’s blog I’m going to share some of the skills I learnt from an amazing coach, Michael Kelly.  Last year I was lucky to have 6 sessions with Michael, to sharpen my communication skills, and “Answering Tough Questions” was one of the most confronting, but useful sessions.  Michael generously agreed to me sharing the content with you, and I suggest you reach out to him if you need help with your presentations!

Are you ready to improve?

Ask yourself:
“On a scale from 0-10, with 0 being not at all committed, and 10 totally committed, how committed are you to making a change to your skills? “

Simply answering this question makes you more conscious of what you’re reading and increases the likelihood to commit the skills to memory.

Listening is Critical

To answer a tough question, first you must listen carefully to the person who is talking. A simple technique to help you focus, is to imagine a tattoo on the other person’s forehead: DBAE – it stands for Don’t Be Anywhere Else.  If you focus on the imaginary tattoo, it can also take the pressure off directly looking at someone else in the eye.

Answering tough questions successfully, becomes easy when you have a schema to step through.  Here’s Michael’s recommended steps to answering tough questions.

5 Steps to Answering Tough Questions:

1. Imagine DBAE & nod to demonstrate your engagement as you listen to the question
2. Respond with “Tough question!” or “Great question!” or “That’s a challenging one”
3. Then say “Give me a moment to think about that” (Park the audience, go inside your head to ’find’ a response, look up as you’re thinking – take 4 full seconds)
4. Open with, “On first thought…” or “Top of mind…” Remember to speak slowly. If you can’t find a response “I don’t have a fixed view on that” or “Let me get back to you on that”
5. Close off your response with”… and that’s my view on.. <reframe the original question as a statement>”

The best way to learn, is to practice with a buddy.  Open 5 Steps for Tough Questions and have it up on the screen in front of you to refer to. Ask your buddy to stand with their back to the screen and you ask tough questions. If they have nothing that’s top of mind, they can use a curated list of analytics questions that have been curated by the Tableau Community.

Buddy’s Give Feedback Using the 1, 2 Structure

1: Kudos to Give:“I like…”
Let the person know the things that are great, and that you like about their delivery.  Start with “I like….”

2: Suggestions to Tweak: “I suggest…”
A suggestion is something people can take or leave which makes it less confronting, particularly when you’re using the “I like…”, then “I suggest..” structure.

Reflection:

Getting put on the spot with tough questions can be tricky to navigate. If you practice Michael’s 5 steps to answering tough questions, you’ll create time for yourself to answer in a structured easy fashion. The practice is critical, you’ll find yourself answering “Tough question…” before you know it!

Be generous with your feedback for buddies, we use similar structures for viz reviews which I’ll blog about in the future.

Finally, a huge thank you to Michael for generously sharing his knowledge and allowing me to blog about the process.  I highly recommend reaching out to him for advice and coaching on improving your presentation skills.