{"id":2967,"date":"2025-04-09T15:23:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T05:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2025-04-09T15:24:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T05:24:06","slug":"how-to-think-on-your-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/how-to-think-on-your-feet\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Think on Your Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps you&#8217;ve been in one or both of the following scenarios:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You are giving a presentation to the executive team of your organisation for a proposal to launch a new product or service. During question time you get asked a question that you haven\u2019t prepared for. How do you respond?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You are having your weekly one on one session with your manager when she asks how you\u2019re progressing on a project given to you a couple of months ago. As you haven\u2019t done any further work on it for the last 3-4 weeks and was not prepared for her question, what do you say?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of us have experienced these kinds of situations or at least something similar. When that happens it\u2019s easy to panic, freeze, and not know how to respond. In this article I outline eight suggestions on how to cope when you have to think on your feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Be Prepared<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Know your subject\/project inside out and anticipate possible questions by asking yourself \u2018what if\u2026?\u2019 naming various \u2018off the wall\u2019 possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Dry Run<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For important presentations or reports, consider doing a dry run through with your manager, colleague(s), family members or friends. In particular, encourage them to ask out of the box questions you might not expect and name anything in your presentation they find is unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Breathe Deeply and Relax<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When asked an unexpected question it is normal to feel overwhelmed emotionally. Breathing deeply, slowly and remembering to intentionally relax stress points in your body such as shoulders, forehead, neck and stomach before your presentation and especially when you have to think on your feet helps you to think more clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Clarify the Question<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A good technique is to try and clarify the question you\u2019ve been asked. This can be done by replying for example, \u201cI understand you want me to explain how\u2026. Is that right?\u201d Not only will that help the questioner clarify and be specific, it will save you from giving the wrong answer as well as giving you more thinking time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Focus<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In answering the question avoid giving more information than is needed. Answer only the specified question &#8211; don\u2019t elaborate as that could easily generate confusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Speak at a Moderate Pace<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For some people it\u2019s tempting to speak quickly, loudly or mumble when put on the spot. By speaking at a moderate level and at a normal pace you have more time to consider your response as well as being able to slow down your emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Be Honest<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you can\u2019t answer, or can only answer part of the question, answer as much as you can but promise to try and find out and get back to them. If you pretend to be able to answer you can easily be caught out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Check<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once you\u2019ve answered check back with the questioner that you\u2019ve adequately answered their question, eg. \u201cDoes that sufficiently cover what you were asking?\u201d If it does thank them for their question. If it doesn\u2019t again promise to find out as much as you can and get back to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s okay not to be able to answer every question you could possibly be asked. However, as presenter you should be able to have sufficient information to answer most questions given available knowledge on the topic. The secret is to be fully prepared and if you are thrown a \u2018curve ball\u2019 don\u2019t panic, control your emotional reactions (as already mentioned breathing deeply helps) so you can think clearly, and if necessary, offer to research further and come back to the questioner (or group) with more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/graham-beattie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Graham Beattie<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are free resources on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">our site<\/a> to assist leaders further in their growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever conducted an excellent presentation, only to be broadsided during Q&#038;A with a question you weren&#8217;t prepared for? In today&#8217;s post Graham Beattie discusses how to handle this, and other situations where you need to think on your feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-emotional-intelligence","category-feedback-effectiveness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2972,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions\/2972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.australiancoachingcollective.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}