The Perfect Response : How to respond when you're put on the spot

Opportunity is an unexpected and rare thing. There’s rarely any fair warningbefore you hear the proverbial‘knock on the door’ but when it doescome, it’s entirely up to you to riseto the occasion. When looking at aseasoned career-person they alwaysseem to say and do the right thingin the face of opportunity. It lookseffortless and natural… but is it?

Let’s use the famous ‘elevatorpitch’ as a reference point. This represents the 30 seconds that a potential financier is stuck in an elevator with you and has to listen to your idea and vision. Someone who intends to walk out of there with a deal probably foresaw an event like this and spent weeks crafting the perfect pitch, repeating the lines over and over again until they felt natural. When the moment finally arrived with the realness, intensity and unexpectedness that they usually do you’re already familiar with each word and have paired it with an almost musical cadence.

A good case where the perfect responses were used to rise to the occasion came when Sir Bobby Robinson moved to the Sporting Club Portugal. He couldn’t speak Portuguese or Spanish very well and had a great need for an interpreter who could aptly get the point across during the heavily covered press conferences and training sessions. A multilingual young man who also happened to have studied sports science at the Technical University of Lisbon stepped was up for the challenge. But when Jose translated on Sir Robinson’s behalf he would sometimes add on little pieces of information that made a huge difference in the way the players performed and also how the press would perceive Sir Robinson’s strategy. It wasn’t long before Sir Robinson caught on, but instead of a harsh reprimand, he ended up taking pointers from this young man who had a seemingly exceptional eye for strategy. And when Sir Bobby moved to FC Porto in 1993, it wasn’t a surprise that Jose moved with him and again in 1996, they immigrated together to Barcelona, moves that placed Jose in the perfect place to ascend into a career of team management.

One wouldn’t really consider the weekly office meeting in the same respect as the elevator-pitch, but what if you actually did? What would it be like if you paid attention, asked questions, requested to handle projects, gave your two cents on the issues listed on the agenda? This is admittedly easier for the ‘office cool kids’ and/or management but for someone hoping to make a splash for the first time, it can be difficult, especially when your personality and demeanour makes it difficult to be outgoing.

However, if the boss points at you and asks ‘You there, what do you think about this?’ It will more often than not catch you off guard. Instead of hoping you’re not put on the spot, prepare. Google’s research on high-performing teams revealed that two things were consistently present in their meetings: broad participation and psychological safety. Calling on people – even if it feels like putting them on the spot – is critical gaining broad participation. This means that when your boss shines a light on you, he isn’t doing so to be a jerk, he genuinely is interested in what you have to say. It usually goes way better if you're prepared.

Prepare adequately:

So what does preparation look like? Remember the notebook that you scribble those little thoughts that you felt were important at the moment? That’s an excellent place to start. Reading through what happened in the previous meeting sets you up to understand the direction that the coming meeting might be heading. It’s best to do this, and maybe even make audio notes that you can listen to on your way into the next meeting. This puts you in the right frame of mind. In some companies like Amazon, They have a half hour intro-session in the weekly meetings where everyone reads all the memos and notes in preparation for the meeting. This was set up when management found out that more often than not people pretended to have read the memos and it dulled the productivity of the meetings. After this moment was taken to reflect, listen keenly to the tone that the meeting takes as it kicks off. Listening helps to organize your thoughts. Another part of preparation is having a go-to set of responses that you can retrieve to help you to position yourself better for a response. People usually see past delay tactics so avoid those if possible. The key here is to employ honesty with each statement.

‘Please say a bit more about what you’re asking’ is a decent response for when you need more information about what you’ve been asked about or need a clearer context. It’s important to only use this when you need more information about a certain topic.

‘I’ll get back to you by 1 pm’ if you don’t have the answer you could respond with. It frees you up to learn more about the said topic and is a better go to than rambling or making excuses.

‘This is what I’m getting from the conversation’ is an excellent way to re-affirm the ideas that have been floated. It also shows that you’re listening while giving you the freedom to express your understanding of the conversation while allowing others the freedom to help you get on the same page as them on issues where you might have missed a point or two. This validates the contributions of everyone and allows for understanding across the board.

‘While I would have preferred a different approach, I fully support this’ is a good way to show that you stand with the team’s decision despite having a different approach. You won’t always have things your way, and in moments like that, you can let people now that despite your different stance, you still support them.

‘I think I’m clear about the ideas, and I see it differently.May I tell you?’ As far as disagreements go this is a goodway to get into it. Disagreements happen from time totime and when they do it’s important to speak in a waythat allows you to be heard. Speaking in a way thatreduces defensiveness and eliminates the notion of rightand wrong makes it easier to navigate conversation andeventually find a point of connection.

Believe that your contribution matters:

Everyone who’s a regular participant in meetings believes that their ideas matter, no matter how wrong or mediocre they might be. You should too. Your ideas and perspectives are unique to you and your background.No one else sees things as you do and so your ideas have value. You could dismiss them as ordinary, but to another person, they might be Gold. Making an impression is more about honesty, not about how well-polished your thoughts are and if you respect your ideas, others will too.

Start slow:

The surprise that comes with being put on the spot can cause a knee-jerk reaction which spurs people to start talking too fast. You have to fight this urge. The best way to do so is to pause and take a deep breath before you respond. It’s clear to everyone that you’ve been put on the spot and won’t be seen as wrong or inappropriate.

Set up Your responses:

If you have a decent grasp of what your response will be its good to let the group know what to expect. Setup your responses with a statement that summarisesyour contribution like ‘I have one comment and twoquestions’ or ‘ Here are three points that I think wecould highlight on as we go along.’ This is meant to helpyou organize your thoughts and reduce the chances yourrambling. Sometimes – when put on the spot – it’s okay to ramble, however, it is important that you let them know ahead of time. Justify the ramble with an introductory statementlike ‘I have a few points but I’m uncertain about how I’mgoing to express them, please bear with me’. This givesyou the freedom to think out loud.

Politely Decline:

If you have been called on to speak and genuinely have nothing to add, then find a way to pass on the opportunity without sounding disinterested or unprepared. You might mean well when you use statements like ‘I’m fine, thank you’ but they have a way of sounding dis-engaged. The better way to go about this is by using statements like ‘Thanks for asking, my thinking has already been expressed by others.’ Or ‘Thanks for checking in with me, my group can live with what we’ve agreed on.’ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊