Skip to Main Content
In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions—When It Counts, Second Edition
book

In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions—When It Counts, Second Edition

by Jerry Weissman
September 2013
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
224 pages
3h 51m
English
Pearson
Content preview from In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions—When It Counts, Second Edition

Chapter 2. The Critical Dynamics of Q&A

To fully appreciate the importance of control in handling Q&A sessions, we must start by looking at the consequences of lack of control. Most presenters react to tough questions in one of two ways: They become either defensive or contentious.

Defensive

On April 19, 2007, Alberto Gonzales, the then U.S. Attorney General, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation of his Justice Department’s firing of eight federal prosecutors. According to a Washington Post report of the hearings, Gonzales used the phrase, “I don’t recall,” and its variants (“I have no recollection,” “I have no memory”) 64 times during his testimony!

The Post report went on to describe Gonzales’ defensive ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Reinventing the Organization for GenAI and LLMs

Reinventing the Organization for GenAI and LLMs

Ethan Mollick
Advance

Advance

Gary Burnison

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780133157925Purchase book