In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions... When It Counts
Page 14
Has the resistance been light simply because the Iraqis are retreating, or are they simply not engaging you, or are they surrendering? What exactly are they doing?
The epitome of succinctness, General Schwarzkopf replied:
All of the above.
A reporter wearing eyeglasses asked:
You say the opposition is light. Is this because you have avoided a frontal confrontation with them, or are you going around, or over, and is that why there is little opposition?
General Schwarzkopf responded:
We will go around, over, through, on top, underneath, and any other way to get through.
The same reporter tried a follow-on question:
General have you gone through sir? Is that why it's light?
Ignoring the man with eyeglasses, the general turned to another.
One more.
This journalist asked:
General have you encountered the Republican Guard yet?
Moving briskly, General Schwarzkopf responded:
Some.
This journalist also tried a follow-on question:
What kind of resistance have you gotten from that?
General Schwarzkopf also ignored this follow-on and turned to another reporter.
Alright last question.
The last question came from a man with a British accent.
General are you going to pursue the Iraqi soldiers into Iraq, or are you going to stop at the Kuwait/Iraq border?
General Schwarzkopf looked straight at the man and said:
I am not going to answer that. We are going to pursue them in any way it takes to get them out of Kuwait.
Then the general slapped his palm on the lectern, turned on his heel, and walked out, saying over his shoulder:
Thank you very much.
The reporter wearing eyeglasses called after him:
General, when will we see you again? Tomorrow at six?[10.1]
The general did not reply. He left his last words trailing in his wake, resonating throughout the press room, and out into millions of television sets around the globe, "We are going to pursue them in any way it takes to get them out of Kuwait," his Point B, his Topspin.
General Schwarzkopf had a number of unique control factors working for him that you and most people in business, and in most walks in life, do not share. In his press conferences, the general was the solicited party, and his audiences were the solicitors. In your Q&A sessions, the shoe will be on the other foot: You will be the solicitor, and your audiences, with whom you are trying to do business, will be the solicited. Most of the general's information fell under the cloak of tactical secrecy; most of your business information must be open and above board. The general had no need to give his media audience a single WIIFY; you have an obligation to give your audience as many WIIFYs as you can.
Nevertheless, General Schwarzkopf provided an excellent role model for all the techniques in this book:
Manage the time
Listen intently
Identify the Roman Column in every question
Buffer with the key word
Answer succinctly
Topspin, Topspin, Topspin
Complete Control
Figure 10.1 is a graphical representation of the dynamics of a conventional Q&A scenario. The first downward triangle in black indicates a challenging question, plunging at you like a dart to the heart. Most presenters, being results-driven, rush to provide an answer, parallel to the question, represented by the downward white triangle. These separate dynamics exert no control and add no value to the exchange.
Figure 10.1. Conventional Q&A dynamics.
To assert control in your Q&A exchange, you must listen for the Roman Column during the question with the "empty cup" concentration of a Zen master. Then you must intervene with the two upward grey triangles in Figure 10.2.
Figure 10.2. Controlled Q&A dynamics.
The first gray triangle is a Buffer composed of a paraphrase or key words to level the playing field, the equivalent of self-defense in the martial arts. The second gray triangle, which brackets the answer, is Topspin to your Point B and/or your audience's WIIFY, the equivalent of an agile switch to the offensive in the martial arts. These upward thrusts add control dynamics to the exchange.
Between the two, you must provide an answer that is the positive Yang to balance the negative Yin in the issue of the challenge.
When most politicians respond to questions, they jump directly to the Topspin, conveniently skipping the answer. In one of the 2000 presidential debates, then Governor George W. Bush jumped to his Topspin with an insufficient answer to Lisa Kee's question about his tax proposals. Skipping the answer appears evasive. Never skip the answer.
Earlier in that very same debate, however, the governor made a strong Topspin after responding to Al Gore's challenge. A little more than a year later, in a press conference at a high school in Crawford, Texas, as president, George W. Bush directly answered a question about U.S./Soviet relations and then added his Topspin. A little more than a year and a half after that, in his press conference on the White House lawn, he directly answered a question about his prospects for reelection and then moved on to his Topspin. A year after that and throughout his campaign for reelection, including all his debates, he resolutely stuck to his policy decisions in his answers and stayed on message with his Topspin.
Once you provide the answer, you can Topspin at will.
When most businesspeople respond to questions, in their eagerness to provide an effect to a cause, they jump directly to the answer, end the exchange, and then promptly move on to the next question. In the process, they bypass the opportunity to Topspin. They offer no Point B and no WIIFY. They make no call to action and give the audience no reason to act. Such behavior exerts zero control.
The winning sequence is
Question
Buffer
Answer with supporting evidence
Topspin
When you learn all the steps with the discipline of a samurai warrior and apply them with the controlled artistry of a symphony conductor, you combine the up and down dynamics of the triangles in Figure 10.2 and shift their direction…in your favor. You take complete control.
Asserting all these control techniques is no easy matter, for they require an entirely new set of skills that are counterintuitive to the reflexive Fight or Flight behavior triggered when you step into the line of fire. The challenge to achieve control is then doubled: Overcome the instincts, and learn the new skills. It is a task well worth the effort, for the outcome is also doubled: Survive and thrive without fighting.
P.S. The last sentence in this book is a WIIFY, my Topspin to you. Good luck!
Endnotes
Introduction
1. Courtesy CNN.
2. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney, W.W. Norton, 2000.
Chapter 1
1. The Bob Newhart Show, ©1975, Twentieth Century Fox Television. Written by Bruce Kane. All rights reserved.
2. http://redsox.bostonherald.com/redSox/view.bg?articleid=59315.
3. Larry King Live, Transcript, Courtesy CNN.
Chapter 3
1. Debate Transcript, The New York Times, October 16, 1992.
2. From Newsweek August 17, 1992 Newsweek Poll 8/6-8/7, August 31, 1992 Newsweek Poll 8/21, as published in Newsweek ©1992 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
From Newsweek September 21, 1992 Newsweek Poll 9/10-9/11, October 5, 1992, Newsweek Poll 9/24-9/25, October 12, 1992 Newsweek Poll 10/1-2, October 26, 1992 Newsweek Poll 10/15-16, and Newsweek October 19, 1992 Newsweek Poll 10/11, Conducted by the Gallup Organization, as published in Newsweek ©1992 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
3. All's Fair: Love, War and Running for President, by Mary Matalin and James Carville with Peter Knobler, Random House, 1994.
4. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000c.html.
5. http://www.debate
s.org/pages/trans2004c.html.
6. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans92b2.html#q-debt.
7. Carville, op cit.
8. http://www.actupny.org/campaign96/rafsky-clinton.html.
9. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans92b2.html#q-debt.
10. The Washington Post, October 17, 1992.
11. From Mad As Hell by Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover. Copyright ©1993 by Politics Today, Inc. By permission of Warner Books, Inc.
Chapter 4
1. Zen in the Martial Arts, by Joe Hyams, Jeremy P. Tarcher/ Perigee Books, 1979.
2. From Mad As Hell by Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover. Copyright ©1993 by Politics Today, Inc. By permission of Warner Books, Inc.
3. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans92b2.html#q-debt.
Chapter 5
1. Secret Tactics: Lessons from the Great Masters of Martial Arts, by Kazumi Tabata, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc, 2003.
2. Copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Repro-duced by permission from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
3. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/19662.htm.
Chapter 6
1. From The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee To Better Understand the World Around You and Acieve a Reward-ing Life by John Little, published by Contemporary Books, copyright ©1996 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. The material is reproduced with permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies
2. http://www.whitehouse.gov.newsreleases/2004/04/04/print/20040413-20.html.
3. The New York Times, August 27, 2004.
4. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004c.html.
5. "Pres Hopeful Kerry Pressed On Foreign Leader Claims," Dow Jones Newswires, Wall Street Journal Online, 3/15/04.
6. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans92b2.html.#q-debt.
Chapter 7
1. Secret Tactics: Lessons from the Great Masters of Martial Arts, by Kazumi Tabata, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc, 2003.
2. ABC News/Nightline, October 25, 1988.
3. http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000c.html
4. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011115-4.html.
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030516-15.html.
6. "Election Reinforces U.S. Religious Divide," by the Assoc-iated Press, The New York Times, November 5, 2004. Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. Distributed by Valeo IP
7. "Bush Drives a Wedge Through the Electorate," Financial Times, November 4, 2004. Reprinted by permission of Financial Times. Copyright ©2004 by The Financial Times
8. http://debates.org/pages/trans88c.html.
9. Debate Transcript, Courtesy CNN.
Chapter 8
1. Secret Tactics: Lessons from the Great Masters of Martial Arts, by Kazumi Tabata, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc, 2003.
2. Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television, by Don Hewitt, Public Affairs 2001, 2002.
3. From "Winners of the First 1960 Televised Presidential Debate Between Kennedy and Nixon," by Sidney Kraus,. Journal of Communication. Volume: 46. Issue: 4. Copyright ©1996 by Journal of Communication. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
4. Transcript, Courtesy CNN.
5. "An Acquired Taste," by James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly, July 2000.
6. Larry King Live, Transcript, Courtesy CNN.
7. Fallows, op cit.
Chapter 9
1. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, Translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambala Publications, Inc., 1988.
2. http://debates.org
3. http://debates.org
4. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/
5. http://debates.org
6. http://debates.org
7. "Gore drowns in his own honey," By Bill Press/CNN, October 12, 2000.
8. http://debates.org
9. http://interactive.wsj.com/edition/resources/documents/poll-20001017.html.
10. http://debates.org
11. http://www.gallup.com/
12. http://www.gallup.com/
13. "Kerry looked like a leader," by E.J. Dionne, Washington Post Writers Group, October 2, 2004.
14. http://debates.org
15. http://debates.org
16. http://debates.org
17. http://www.gallup.com/
18. http://www.gallup.com/
19. http://debates.org
20. http://www.gallup.com/
21. "A Crucial Test, but Not Final," by Todd S. Purdum, The New York Times, October 14, 2004. Copyright ©2004 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission
22. http://www.gallup.com/
23. http://www.gallup.com/
24. Courtesy CNN.
Chapter 10
1. ABC News video transcript.
Acknowledgments
For Power Presentations, Ltd.:
Jim Welch is technically the CPA of my company, but he is much more than that. His invaluable acumen helps me to run the business and frees me to deliver the programs that form the basis for this book. Jim is also a wise counsel in matters human and spiritual. As if all of that were not enough, Jim, who attained the Do rank of 4.0 Kyu in Shotokan Karate, validated the martial arts analogies. In fact, Jim is a Black Belt Master in life.
Nichole Nears and Jennifer Turcotte also help me operate the company, but their contributions to this book went far beyond the call of duty. Together, they performed as a research engine that out-Googled Google. Nichole also generated all the line art with the precision of an architect, tracked down the permissions with the due diligence of an attorney, managed the manuscript with the authority of a drill sergeant, and still had time to be our Web Master. Jennifer handled the source videotapes with the thoroughness of a producer and pre-screened them with the eye of a director. Surely, Ben Affleck will star her first film.
Cousin Joel Goldberg, an image-maker par excellence, lent his images and talents generously.
For the source videos:
Kenn Rabin of Fulcrum Media Services went to the ends of the earth to find and, in some cases, unearth the many video and film clip examples that support my concepts. Kenn did his searching with the patience of a monk and the knowledge of a Talmudic scholar.
Brian Fulford, the Senior Licensing Agent of CNN, provided the bulk of the source videos and was a repository of camera angles himself.
Ed Rudolph and Bob Johns, the editors who helped me grab the still frames for the book, are artists-in-residence at Video Arts, San Francisco, a superb production house managed by Kim Salyer and David Weissman. David is no relative, but I wish he were.
Rich Hall contributed mightily to the evolution of the source videos.
For the book:
Bill Immerman, my attorney, who produced the superb film, Ray, during the writing of this book, still found time to provide his astute counsel.
Arthur Klebanoff, a rare agent who understands ink-stained wretches because he is one himself.
Paula Sinnott, my new editor at Pearson, found new values in material that took me nearly two decades to develop.
Lori Lyons, the Pearson project editor, guided the manuscript through the complex shoals of the production process with the steady assurance of harbor pilot.
Chuck Elliot plastered many green Post-its throughout an early version of the manuscript, all of which helped me to move it to a more mature version with the blazing speed of a Curt Schilling fastball…much faster than Pedro Martinez ever could.
Quentin Hardy, whose PDA and mind are filled with valuable information from Beowulf to Burlingame and beyond.
Bruce LeBoss introduced me to the classic Bob Newhart episode.
Eric Nielsen, Senior Director, Rights and Permissions, The Gallup Organization, always exercised his attention to detail, a most suitable trait for a statistician.
Warren Drabek tracked permissions relentlessly.
For their inspiration:
Mike Wallace, Senior Correspondent for CBS Sixty Minutes. H
eaven did help me.
Babette Cohen did not blow my cover.
Melvin Van Peebles, an entire B.E.T. unto himself, was a reality check at every step along the way, as always.
The late Kelsey Selander Phipps pointed me to the platform. The late Harry Miles Muheim, American, my first speech teacher and a superb writer, taught me to "Keep going," and became the ultimate mentor for the whole shooting match.
As a teacher on my own, I am always mindful of the Rogers and Hammerstein song from The King and I, in which a teacher sings of being taught by her students. Many of my student-clients have challenged me, queried me, tested me, disagreed and agreed with me, but they have all taught me to look at my own material more scrupulously and to make improvements constantly. I am particularly grateful to Vani Kola, the CEO of Certus, a company that helps other companies in the line of fire of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Vani's astute perceptions during her Q&A session with me added dimension to both the program and the book.
I am also grateful for the stimulating input…and continuing support…from the many people at Cisco Systems, among them Sue Bostrom, James Richardson, Peter Alexander, Toby Burton, Kaan Terzioglu, Corinne Marsolier, Mary Gorges, and Joe Ammirato; and from the many people at Microsoft Corporation, among them Jeff Raikes, Mike Nash, Kai Fu Lee, Yuval Neeman, Pascal Martin, Vince Mendillo, Sara Williams, Ilya Bukshteyn, Dave Mendlen, Kristin Buzun, and Paul Sausville.