Icing the Hot Seat
Emerge unscathed from line-of-fire Q&A sessions with these tips for how NOT to handle tough questions.
By Jerry Weissman, Power Presentations, Ltd.
Feb. 20, 2006
You've told a compelling story, you've designed dazzling PowerPoint slides, you've delivered your message confidently, and now you open the floor to questions. Unless you manage this part of your presentation effectively, all of your other efforts will go up in smoke. You must stand tall in the line of fire, and learn how to handle tough questions.
Software executives find themselves in such situations almost daily ... whether speaking to a reporter, meeting analysts, presenting at a conference or headlining an IPO road show. Fortunately, speaking consultants abound with advice about managing Q&A, ranging from media training to mock practice sessions. Unfortunately, a number of counterproductive practices have evolved along the way.
After coaching more than 500 IPO road shows, including those of Cisco Systems, Intuit, Yahoo! and Dolby Labs, I've developed a set of the most productive ways to deal with difficult speaking situations. Here are the most common speaking misconceptions today, coupled with the right way to survive the "hot seat."
DON'T make a list of potential tough questions and prepare an answer for each. Preparation is a good idea, but this approach is misguided. People in public don't ask questions as written in advance. Audiences take in a great deal of new information, and so their questions come out convoluted and rambling. Furthermore, this preparatory approach produces a long complex list that forces the presenter into a mental scramble to match the question as asked and the answer as written. The scramble inevitably produces misfiring, often leading to the wrong answer. DO: Prepare a short list of key issues, and an equally short position statement for each: Bullets rather than sentences; concepts rather than script.
DON'T refer back to a slide if someone asks a question about a subject you've already covered. This is a bad idea because it implies that your questioner is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, you will appear awkward as you search for the earlier slide. DO: State your answer ... without the slide ... as if you never covered it, and do it succinctly. Back references are good narrative techniques during a presentation but, because the dynamics change during the free fire of a Q&A session, never look back. Keep moving forward.
DON'T compliment your questioner by saying, "That was a good question," or "I'm glad you asked that." Will you then insult the next questioner by saying, "That was a bad question," or "I'm not at all happy you asked that"? DO: Make no value judgments or characterizations of any question. Simply respond to the central issue in the question.
Software executives find themselves in such situations almost daily ... whether speaking to a reporter, meeting analysts, presenting at a conference or headlining an IPO road show. Fortunately, speaking consultants abound with advice about managing Q&A, ranging from media training to mock practice sessions. Unfortunately, a number of counterproductive practices have evolved along the way.
After coaching more than 500 IPO road shows, including those of Cisco Systems, Intuit, Yahoo! and Dolby Labs, I've developed a set of the most productive ways to deal with difficult speaking situations. Here are the most common speaking misconceptions today, coupled with the right way to survive the "hot seat."
DON'T make a list of potential tough questions and prepare an answer for each. Preparation is a good idea, but this approach is misguided. People in public don't ask questions as written in advance. Audiences take in a great deal of new information, and so their questions come out convoluted and rambling. Furthermore, this preparatory approach produces a long complex list that forces the presenter into a mental scramble to match the question as asked and the answer as written. The scramble inevitably produces misfiring, often leading to the wrong answer. DO: Prepare a short list of key issues, and an equally short position statement for each: Bullets rather than sentences; concepts rather than script.
DON'T refer back to a slide if someone asks a question about a subject you've already covered. This is a bad idea because it implies that your questioner is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, you will appear awkward as you search for the earlier slide. DO: State your answer ... without the slide ... as if you never covered it, and do it succinctly. Back references are good narrative techniques during a presentation but, because the dynamics change during the free fire of a Q&A session, never look back. Keep moving forward.
DON'T compliment your questioner by saying, "That was a good question," or "I'm glad you asked that." Will you then insult the next questioner by saying, "That was a bad question," or "I'm not at all happy you asked that"? DO: Make no value judgments or characterizations of any question. Simply respond to the central issue in the question.
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