React confidently to complicated or provocative questions? A technique by Steve Jobs and Elon Musk can help: with a simple trick, you can give more thoughtful answers. This is how it works.
Two seconds. Five seconds. Ten seconds. If nothing more occurs to you in a conversation, there is often embarrassed silence. And that often feels extremely uncomfortable for those involved. Until a person takes pity and ends the silence with a small talk topic.
But it is precisely this uncomfortable silence that can be worth its weight in gold in certain situations: namely when you have to answer a difficult, big or provocative question. Pre-power has been around decades ago Apple founder Steve Jobs and now Tesla founder Elon Musk, like Justin Bariso, an expert on emotional intelligence, the US magazine Inc . writes. The strategy can also work in sales : Silence in the sales pitch: When you as a salesperson should keep your mouth shut - and when not
Musk and Jobs ponder their answer for up to 20 seconds
In various interviews it can be observed how both do not answer a question promptly, but instead take time to think about their reaction. Bariso refers, for example, to an interview with Elon Musk, in which he is asked which aspects are important for corporate culture on the way from a small company to a global corporation. Musk does not answer immediately, but remains silent for 15 seconds - the audience and questioners endure the silence patiently (the scene in this video takes place from minute 20 onwards).
The same strategy helped Steve Jobs when he had to face public criticism: At a developer conference in 1997, a participant accused Jobs of not knowing what he was talking about. He asked him what he'd been up to over the past few years - Jobs had just returned to Apple after leaving the company more than a decade earlier.
This provocation would be reason enough for many to react indignantly. Not so Steve Jobs. First he takes a sip of water, thinks, says that you can't please everyone, and then thinks further - for a total of 20 seconds . Instead of reacting angrily, this pause for thought helps him to come up with a calm and objective answer, in which he even partially agrees with the critic.
How to react to provocations: Fending off verbal attacks: 5 tips on how to counter verbal attacks like a pro
How to make the silence more bearable
The Bariso calls this pause for thought, the rule of uncomfortable silence, "Rule of awkward silence". Entrepreneurs who want to test this technique may not immediately enjoy it. If you usually answer quickly, you and the person you are speaking to are not used to enduring the silence. A simple one: "I have to think about it for a moment, give me a moment" can defuse the situation.
The break helps to sort your thoughts, to put anger aside and not to lapse into so-called speech thinking - that is, to start talking and only think about what you are actually saying while you are speaking.
Silence is not your thing? Try these answers instead: Quick-wittedness: 11 tips for quick-witted answers
