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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
In the workplace, it is sometimes more important to reply with an 80% correct answer within half a second of being asked, than replying with a 100% correct answer 5 seconds later[1]. It's a peculiar phenomenon, one that is perhaps grounded more in social psychology than logic. It's worth thinking a little bit about why someone (typically a superior) would behave in this manner. My thought is that an immediate response conveys confidence and control of the subject matter; it implies that we have a firm grasp on the situation, and that we are always conscious of its developments. After all, it does seem reasonable to connect our response time and our assumed attention level to the topic proportionally. There often really is a correlation there. So if if it really is in our best interest to respond to a question right away, what do we need to do to? There are a few keys here. One crucial habit is to predict what we'll be asked, and have prepared answers for each. One obvious point of preparation is meetings. Going over the key points of information in our heads, predicting the issues that will come up, and organizing the information and current status in our heads beforehand will aid us tremendously in being able to respond to a question immediately. In fact, preparation and consciousness of potential questions seems to be the best way to artificially improve our ability to cope with these inquiries[2]. I am a practitioner of what I preach. For each weekly meeting, I go over the most crucial topics of the week that we'll most likely cover, organize the information I have for each of them, and be on my toes mentally. The process only takes about ten or fifteen minutes, which comfortably fits into my commute. Unfortunately, there is no way to get around the need to actually know our domain. However, I have personally had experiences where I understood the subject, yet have been unable to conjure up the responses in a sufficiently short timeframe. While proper possession of information is necessary, it doesn't seem to be a sufficient condition for handling these situations. I guess we can rephrase this whole subject matter as how not to get caught off guard with a question. Reworded in this manner, it makes sense that our solution is to have the ability to prepare (knowledge) and to go through the mental motions for actually preparing ourselves for each occasion (bringing the knowledge to the surface level of our minds). I am often surprised by how little people seem to have prepared mentally for a meeting; I see people with a strong grasp of their work stumble and fall when faced with a question -- for example, about the status and path to resolution for a known open issue. Just organizing the pertinent information and thinking through how we'll answer each likely question will go a long ways in preventing some headaches down the line.
[1]Perhaps the same effect can be seen in other social situations as well.
Crossposted from my main blog
 
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In any situation it's preferred to answer something immediately rather than waiting 5 seconds, or at least start answering it. Even if you followup with something absolutely contradictory a few seconds later. Human conversation is designed to minimize gap and overlap, and when there are excessive gaps (5 seconds is forever in conversation) it is a universal semiotic cue that 'something is wrong'. (Whatever that something is).
But it's not something you need to necessarily do consciously, and not sure if its something you could do just like that. We're all aware of silences immediately, even really short ones, at a basic intuitive level.
This isn't something specific to the work or professional sphere, it's a universal of conversation.
(REF)
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yeah it's built into us in any conversation. it's influenced by culture too, for example in southern european cultures you'll usually have people beginning to talk before the other part is finished speaking, whereas in nordic cultures (mine for example) longer pauses are allowed without the conversation feeling cramped.
like, if I was talking to an italian and neither of us would adapt (something we also do naturally) we'd make each other feel really uncomfortable. he because i wasn't talking back quickly enough and thus he would think I thought it was disinteresting. I would feel uncomfortable because he wouldn't let me in the conversation.
it's also a way to maintain power in a conversation. like when you see politicians debate you'll generally not see much pause, because whenever you pause you're inviting the other person and giving him a chance to say and think about whatever he wants. probably also a way for the boss to maintain power even if he doesn't think about it himself.
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On March 29 2012 01:31 Nudelfisk wrote:
yeah it's built into us in any conversation. it's influenced by culture too, for example in southern european cultures you'll usually have people beginning to talk before the other part is finished speaking, whereas in nordic cultures (mine for example) longer pauses are allowed without the conversation feeling cramped.
like, if I was talking to an italian and neither of us would adapt (something we also do naturally) we'd make each other feel really uncomfortable. he because i wasn't talking back quickly enough and thus he would think I thought it was disinteresting. I would feel uncomfortable because he wouldn't let me in the conversation.
it's also a way to maintain power in a conversation. like when you see politicians debate you'll generally not see much pause, because whenever you pause you're inviting the other person and giving him a chance to say and think about whatever he wants. probably also a way for the boss to maintain power even if he doesn't think about it himself.
Oh, its intereting-- Nordic cultures are often discussed in anthropological literature as being really permissive of gaps in conversation-- the paper I linked references that discussion somewhere in it. There's a kind of old account in some outdated anthro paper of some nordic cultures where a question can be asked in the morning, and not answered until the afternoon with nothing but silence in between (I think the account was a couple trappers going out into the snow and not speaking much at all, kind of a compelling image, but I think it's a bit of an exaggerated or misunderstood account in terms of conversation), but it does tap into this intuition we have that some cultures, (like nordic ones) do allow for longer silences in conversation, and people can definitely perceive the difference between cultures.
The bit of it being universal though is that there is a certain culture-specific threshold where silence is okay, exceeding that threshold though has very similar consequences, regardless of language/culture.
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I think it is a indication of wisdom to pause before you reply.
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It's not the answer people want to have directly, they want the confirmation that you understood the question and want to have confirmation you are paying attention to them.
So starting to talk to them within 1 second makes the person who asked you a question feel good, and the most ideal way to answer a question is to think 5 seconds and give the 100% correct answer. Now the problem that arises is how do you fill the 5 seconds that are in between, and that's something i have specialized in, in my line of work. it's solved by asking a question of your own, to confirm to the person that you understood him 100% correctly
Very simple and easy example of this is:
Person 1 :How do you use a stapler correctly?
Person 2: do you mean my blue stapler?
Person 1: yes i mean the blue one
Person 2 : Then start explaining
Between the question from person 2 and the answer from person 1 are a couple of seconds where person 1 is talking. You use that time to 100% correctly answer the question that was asked
English is not my first language, so i have no clue what this is called in english, but this technique is used alot in sales, because answering the question 80% will result in a loss of the order, or a claim afterwards because the buyer didn't have the full info.
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On March 29 2012 01:40 sam!zdat wrote:
I think it is a indication of wisdom to pause before you reply.
My first thoughts exactly. But after thinking a little bit (haha..), I think it really depends on the context in which the question is asked/why the question is asked.
If I walk up on my professor and ask him a mathematical question, then necessarily I'll expect his answer to cover all the different facettes that my question might offer. And the wiser a person the longer they usually take to answer (mostly because they think about possible problems that I didn't even realise could exist). But that is due to them being very good at a wide area and thinking about much more than my question actually required them to do.
The whole 'I present an idea and my superior will judge wether it's a good one or not'-scenario is very different in that aspect, because the answer itself is less important than showing that my idea is very well thought out and problems can be dealt with.
TL;DR: Pause or no pause depends on the question. Do I want to aquire new knowledge or do i want to see wether the person has a solution to a problem?
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On March 29 2012 01:56 Joni_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 01:40 sam!zdat wrote:
I think it is a indication of wisdom to pause before you reply. My first thoughts exactly. But after thinking a little bit (haha..), I think it really depends on the context in which the question is asked/why the question is asked. If I walk up on my professor and ask him a mathematical question, then necessarily I'll expect his answer to cover all the different facettes that my question might offer. And the wiser a person the longer they usually take to answer (mostly because they think about possible problems that I didn't even realise could exist). But that is due to them being very good at a wide area and thinking about much more than my question actually required them to do. The whole 'I present an idea and my superior will judge wether it's a good one or not'-scenario is very different in that aspect, because the answer itself is less important than showing that my idea is very well thought out and problems can be dealt with. TL;DR: Pause or no pause depends on the question. Do I want to aquire new knowledge or do i want to see wether the person has a solution to a problem?
Logically, it makes sense to think carefully before speaking, but subconsciously, the person who speaks more quickly seems to be more knowledgeable.
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I can relate with this, I think the lesson is that the enemy of good is perfect.
You can waste a lot of timing to get things perfect, but often your boss just needs a short sweet to the point answer without tons of detail (and more importantly needs this very quickly). I manage some interns and this is my attitude with them; we are always under time pressure. Some work product needs to be excellent, especially if it is being distributed externally but a lot of the internal stuff (i.e. research for me) needs to be just good enough.
In what industry do you work deadhaji?
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Learning how to not be caught off guard is a very important skill to have. @_@ I see it happening all the time in my classes.
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If thinking before you speak is not consistent with corporate culture I think that is more of a problem with corporate culture than anything else.
For 3 days once I had a job as a SAT tutor for this corporate outfit. I quit because I was expected to never let a student see me thinking about a question: I was expected to give the impression that I knew every answer automatically (and, by correlation, to give the impression that the test itself is not bullshit). As an educator, I feel a moral responsibility never to lie to a student. I think it is harmful to give the impression that academic achievement consists of answering without having to think. That way lies ideology.
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On March 29 2012 03:24 sam!zdat wrote:
If thinking before you speak is not consistent with corporate culture I think that is more of a problem with corporate culture than anything else.
For 3 days once I had a job as a SAT tutor for this corporate outfit. I quit because I was expected to never let a student see me thinking about a question: I was expected to give the impression that I knew every answer automatically (and, by correlation, to give the impression that the test itself is not bullshit). As an educator, I feel a moral responsibility never to lie to a student. I think it is harmful to give the impression that academic achievement consists of answering without having to think. That way lies ideology.
yuck. Totally contrary to the pursuit of knowledge. I've had shitty teaching jobs where that kind of attitude is expected before, and know how you feel.
I tell my students that I don't know all the time, then we talk and reason about how we could figure it out. I always appreciated that kind of frank honesty and curiosity on the part of profs when I was a student. And tbh as a student it was fun/exciting to figure out stuff alongside an expert-- made my thoughts/opinions/intuitions valid and relevant, and the experience taught me so much more about reasoning/thought than would've been possible with cookie cutter answers to questions.
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Caradoc, 100%. I went to an undergraduate college where all classes were conference style with ~12 students and always a full professor. The professors were considered first among colleagues (which was not TRUE, but it was good for us as students). Class consisted of working through difficult problems, being encourged to discover what you did not know so that you could then proceed to investigate these deficiencies. My professors were always honest with us. I learned a ton - both about things themselves and about how to find out about things on my own. Education is not an assembly line.
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I never thought that speaking right away ever makes a good impression. It's like you didn't even think before answering, unless youre a mindless robot that memorized all the possible scenarios of a conversation.
I personally despise people that speak before they think. Never a good sign.
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In the workplace, it is sometimes more important to reply with an 80% correct answer within half a second of being asked, than replying with a 100% correct answer 5 seconds later[1]. It's a peculiar phenomenon, one that is perhaps grounded more in social psychology than logic.
It's worth thinking a little bit about why someone (typically a superior) would behave in this manner. My thought is that an immediate response conveys confidence and control of the subject matter; it implies that we have a firm grasp on the situation, and that we are always conscious of its developments. After all, it does seem reasonable to connect our response time and our assumed attention level to the topic proportionally. There often really is a correlation there.
Experiments have shown this to be true. However, I believe it's a bad thing. You are wrong ''20'' percent of the time, yet people will deem you more capable than someone that came with the right answer, but a couple of minutes later. I believe the experiments showed that when people work together in a group, the first answer that comes up is almost always the answer that is chosen as the right one. Which is just silly.
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Hi! Have you read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? If you're interested in reading about these split second answers and gut feelings, you should read it 
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On March 30 2012 00:26 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2012 06:58 Azera wrote:Hi! Have you read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? If you're interested in reading about these split second answers and gut feelings, you should read it :O nope, I've only read Outliers so far, and I have Tipping Point on my bookshelf. Perhaps I should get Blink too  I knew the title but didn't feel particularly attracted by it.
Maybe you should try Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman(nobel prize winner for behavioral economics). Where he touches on the subject of thinking instinctively, and not thinking instinctively. (Fast and slow) mostly we think instinctively, but not when we try to solve 34*23. The point he tries to get across is this, it's not bad thinking instinctively, and in some fields you can trust your instincts very well(the fields which are being discussed in Blink), but with most big decisions in your life, you should take a step back and analyze the data and not just trust your gut feeling.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On March 30 2012 01:21 Recognizable wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2012 00:26 thedeadhaji wrote:On March 29 2012 06:58 Azera wrote:Hi! Have you read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? If you're interested in reading about these split second answers and gut feelings, you should read it :O nope, I've only read Outliers so far, and I have Tipping Point on my bookshelf. Perhaps I should get Blink too I knew the title but didn't feel particularly attracted by it. Maybe you should try Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman(nobel prize winner for behavioral economics). Where he touches on the subject of thinking instinctively, and not thinking instinctively. (Fast and slow) mostly we think instinctively, but not when we try to solve 34*23. The point he tries to get across is this, it's not bad thinking instinctively, and in some fields you can trust your instincts very well(the fields which are being discussed in Blink), but with most big decisions in your life, you should take a step back and analyze the data and not just trust your gut feeling.
That sounds fascinating. This book I think is currently a bestseller right?
I was thinking about what people have said here; I guess that replying immediately is something we might consciously do for questions of "factual" nature, while we should consciously try to take a breath before replying if something that genuinely requires more thought.
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So one should practice discernment in order to determine quickly if something is the kind of thing which one should respond to quickly, or if it is the kind of the thing which deserves further consideration before a response.
You must then think about your response in two tiers. Sounds complicated :O
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EPT
