How To Answer Any Question Even When You Don't Know The Answer

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1:00Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard? But not the pipeline. That's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions. My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impression. Cut the bullspend. See revenue? Not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign turns the conditions apply. Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the admiral's club lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty vites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed wifi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at AA.com. Today, I'm going to show you how to answer almost any question even when you genuinely

2:00don't know the answer. We're talking about when you're in an interview and you're asked about a technology you've never touched. Or when your boss turns to you in front of the entire team and asks Joseph, what would you do? Or when you're in a conversation and you're asked for your opinion. I'm going to show you how the most intelligent people in the world respond to questions using a three-step process. At the end of this video, I'm going to show you exactly what to do in the moment where you don't know the answer at all. You can't afford to look like an idiot. There's one phrase for that moment that makes people trust you more instead of less. I'll tell you, most people say it the wrong way. Before we address the steps, we have to start with understanding your reaction behind being asked a question. When a question is often asked, our body immediately begins to shift into a kind of what do I do mode? Because the pressure to just say something, and that's where most people make their biggest mistake. The pressure wins because before they've even had a second to think about their direction of thought, the mouth has already began a sentence.

3:02We say, um, or, uh, and now we've committed to speaking. We're talking before we know what we're going to say. And we spend the next 30 seconds trying to catch up to our sentence. So the whole game is what you do in the few seconds before that, uh, or that hesitation word. So before you speak, we have to begin to ask ourselves one important question. And the most important question we can ask ourselves is, what do I need in order to feel comfortable about this question? Because before you answer anything, you're allowed to ask for what you need. Most people forget that you have a tremendous amount of control over far more in that moment than it feels like. For example, if you need a second to think, you're allowed to say that. Give me a moment to think about that. You might have I take 10 seconds to think about that. If you didn't fully catch the question, become aware of that and ask, I didn't quite catch the question. Could you repeat that please? If you're not sure what they're asking, you can literally say, could you elaborate on that more? Could you say a little bit more about what you mean by that? What does that mean? You have to get better at auditing yourself for what you need.

4:03None of that makes you look weak. I've watched people do this and it reads, it's calm and confident. It shows that person is in control over themselves. The person who pauses and asks one clarifying question almost always looks more capable than the person who just blurs out an answer or begins with a filler word. So here's how you actually answer a question after those first few seconds of identifying what you need. If anything, there are three moves and they all happen very fast. Step one, this one is acknowledge the question. After you've given yourself that half second, the first thing out of your mouth is to acknowledge the question. Something like, that's a good question. Or thanks for asking about that. Now this phrase is different for every person depending on their personality. And so it would highly suggest taking time to define what that acknowledgement phrase looks like for you. So you're not needing to just make it up in the spot. I know this sounds small, but this does two things. One, it shows the person that you've actually heard them. And two, advise yourself a couple of seconds while your brain gets to focus on the second step, which is to repeat the kernel. There's this very famous sketch from the artist Pablo Picasso, who's an artist.

5:06And he sketched the portrait of what's called the bowls, where he began with a very detailed bowl. And then he drew another one with a little less detail. And he was trying to capture the essence of the bowl, the animal. And the very last sketch contained what he called the essence of bowl, where most people would look at it. They would look at the five lines and they would say that to bowl. And the same thing exists within every answer. It's the kernel, like a kernel inside a piece of popcorn. I don't actually mean there's food inside of what most people say, but there is a conceptual heart. And the kernel that exists inside of the question, usually a few words, maybe it's a phrase that captures the majority of the content there. And if you're able to repeat that kernel, repeat those words, you set yourself up to be able to answer the essence of the question. So I'll give you an example of this. Let's say your boss says something like, how are you going to hit the deadline if the engineering is behind? What's the kernel? Well, the kernel is the deadline. It's the most important thing being asked. And so you might say, you're asking about the deadline. So you're asking whether or not we can hit the deadline, giving where engineering is

6:07that. Another example might be, let's say I just asked the question behind this video, how to answer any question if you don't know the answer. What I might begin with is, well, that's a good question. You're asking about answering any question, even if I don't know the answer. Literally, all I'm doing is repeating the question, but I'm putting emphasis on the kernel. I could easily just say, you're asking how to answer any questions. This says three things in one move really well. Number one, the person who's asking the question is going to nod because now you're both sure you're talking about the same thing. Secondly, he's giving yourself a few seconds to think with no awkward silence because you're busy saying their question back or you're identifying the kernel, the strategic word or phrase that captures the essence of what they're asking. And now you've made a question small enough to answer. And this is key because most people panic when they try to answer the giant version of the question, once you have it down to a kernel, you almost always find something to say about that topic. The small you make the question, the more answerable it gets. Hey, real quick, if you're in one of these seven roles and the way you communicate right now is you're not structured, you're not clear.

7:09You can't simplify complex ideas and you're not memorable and you're done having these been obstacle in your career and in your communication. I want to invite you to click the link below to book a free diagnosis call where we will help you identify the weak patterns in your communication and see if you qualify for a 90 day elite speech coaching program. Here's what one of our recent clients has to say about the process. I would say probably my proudest elite speak moment happened at a conference I was out a couple weeks ago where I was on a panel. And when we were done, my wife was like, you commanded that room. So let's talk about step three, which is to pull from experience or exploration. So now you've got the kernel in front of you and you have to find some content to fill the answer with. And there are two great places to fall back on that content often comes from. You're either looking back or you're looking forward looking back means you're pulling from your experiences, your expertise, something you've seen lived. The fact you already know and the phrase that we often teach to open that door is very simply, well, this reminds me of when I that that that the second that you're into a story

8:09that you've lived or fact that you know, standing on solid ground because you're speaking on something that you know, that's confident content. Looking forward means that you're exploring. You don't have a memory or a fact ready in your back pocket, but you can reason outloud might be true and that also has its own phrase too. What I think could happen is or what I think is worth considering is or the way that I see this plain out is let's say for example, in an interview, someone asks you a question and they want to know what you think about. Let's say it's China's economic policies, big question, something random and your response is, wow, that's a great question. I might begin by first talking to representatives and trying to find out exactly what they think and then maybe finding some common themes in their answers and determining what policies have worked really well over the last year. What this approach demonstrates is that you have an appetite for finding the answer. Even though you're talking through the steps and it's not a direct straight answer and some might say this is how politicians speak and you're just earned yourself a PhD in yapping, what it does demonstrate is that you have a desire to find the truth and you have a desire

9:13to discover the answer and that is an incredibly attractive quality. It can also give you the bonus of finding the answer along the way as you're talking through it, which is often what happens when we end up delivering something and stepping through how we would go about finding an answer. So think about narrating that journey of how you would go about finding an answer to the question. That is the best pathway to number one, finding the answer itself, finding the goal at the end of the rainbow, but also presenting a very colorful and multi-step answer in the process. So just remember that the two pathways to pursue that are often perceived as the most intelligent pathways are where you can one reflect back on your experience where your expertise is as it relates to the essence of the question. And two, when you look forward and you choose to explore, explore how you would find an answer or possibly how this might play out. And it's so important to know the phrases that you want to use to introduce either that explorative pathway or that experienced pathway.

10:16And the reason why that's important is because of one simple rule in communication we teach, which is the authority in your opening sentence sets the tone for the rest of your idea. If you can say the first few words in a very steady way, the rest of the answer tends to build on the same momentum. You don't actually have to nail the whole answer. You just have to nail the opening and let that momentum carry you forward. You get that doorway open, most of the content on the other side takes care of itself. So I want to take a brief moment before we end and teach you how to say I don't know. This is the bonus fourth step that you're getting in this video. The reason why this is important is because saying I don't know is genuinely a skill and almost nobody practices this. You never want to fake an answer if you don't actually have an answer. This is a concept that we teach called intellectual humility, which is also one of the most attractive qualities in the speaker, someone who's comfortable admitting what they don't know. And oftentimes for people saying I don't know means like confessing your head is empty or that you're somehow an imposter.

11:17And the fix is being able to rehearse how to say I don't know. And literally after this video, take a few minutes and decide how you want to say I don't know and say it out loud a few times. So it stops feeling like it's a wound and it's something that you're comfortable with. And there's a right way to say it and a wrong way to say it. Wrong way to say it is often just a flat, you know, I don't know, full stop. And the version that works well is usually something like I don't know off the top of my head, but I can certainly find out and get back to you tomorrow. Or you could say something like, oh, that's a really good question. I don't have the answer at the moment, but I would probably do to find the answer is I talk to my friend Chris who knows a lot about this topic and I'll get an answer back to you in an hour. Once again, the ignorance is couched in the desire to pursue the answer. And so notice the energy behind both of those versions. The second one was calm solutions oriented. And that energy transcends any amount of ignorance that I might have on the topic. Once again, it signals you are taking the question seriously. And if you want to even make it more powerful, do what I did earlier, which is give a time frame

12:21for when the person can expect an answer by. I'll often do this with a client that I might be working with where they ask me a question on communication and I don't know. I'll say it's fantastic question. I don't know. One of our team members does and I can get an answer to you by this evening. So the speed of your follow up is what shows initiative. And that makes up for any answer that you don't know. So now what you're able to do, taking a step back when you're asked a question, you're able to take a half second, you're able to acknowledge the question, shrink it to the kernel and repeat the kernel. And now you're able to pull from something that either you've lived through or think out loud about what could be true. And even if you can't do that, you still know how to say I don't know and move to the next step. Hope this video helps.