The Real Reason You Can't Think Fast on the Spot

If you're someone who knows your stuff but somehow struggles to think fast, talk smart in those high-stakes meetings, especially when there are senior leaders involved, then this video is for you.

I'm going to go over three mistakes that are probably hurting how you're coming across in executive conversations. And these are not public speaking tips that people say, like do the alpha pose, make sure you pause.

But rather, it's about how our brains are wired up, how we can actually build in flexibility, mental flexibility, when we're on the spot.

Let's get to mistake number one, which is: you prepare linearly for nonlinear conversation.

Here, the key really is in expecting the conversations, especially with senior leaders, to be nonlinear because they are prone to jump around and say, "Hey, what's happening with slide seven? Let's go forward there. Hey, get to the point. What are you actually trying to say here?"

seven? Let's go forward there. Hey, get to the point. What are you actually trying to say here?"

Or they may be saying, "Oh, I heard from another meeting that someone else is considering this. How does this link to that?"

Because of information asymmetry, which just means that your information and their information, exec info, are not perfect overlaps, they'll know things that you don't know and they'll be asking questions about that because what they're trying to build is the mental model

of how your update fits into what they're trying to create.

So we have to expect that they're going to come up with questions and a nonlinear way of navigating the presentation, the update, whatever it is that you're doing.

So with this information asymmetry, what we don't want to do is prepare the old-school way, which is: here is the background information, here's some context, and then here's all the things that we did, and then here's what we found, and maybe here is our recommendation.

And if this is, let's say, slide one to slide ten, each one depends on the previous slide to share the next part of the story.

So when they jump to slide, let's say, eight, you're like, "Oh, okay, well, you know, this slide is about this, and you have to know slide five, where we talked about this other thing."

And it looks like you don't know what you're doing because you cannot catch them up to that slide, which makes sense because you need to share all the context before.

Instead of finding yourself in that position, what you want to do is build mental flexibility into how you're preparing.

Instead of thinking about slides one to ten, move one level up.

So if you imagine everything you know is in these little bits, right? Usually people are like, okay, let me put some numbers to this. So we go from one to ten.

right? Usually people are like, okay, let me put some numbers to this. So we go from one to ten.

Instead, what you want to do is go one level up.

Attempt to draw in 3D, which is not a wise idea, but anyway, you want to go one level up to say: what do all of these actually talk about?

And a classic one, something I've talked about on this channel before, is GPS, right? It stands for goal, problem, and solution.

So if you say, okay, all of this information basically just goes to talk about the goal.

And then all of these other ones just go and talk about the problem and the solution.

When your exec says, okay, you're talking about the setup and the goal and why we're picking this problem. They say, jump to slide eight, which is about solution.

Then you just know, okay, no problem. Let's go to slide eight.

"Our proposed solution is this. And just to set the context so everyone's on the same page, our goal is X and the problem we're solving is Y."

All of a sudden, it's fine if we skipped over everything. I still know what I'm talking about because I've built mental flexibility into how I prepped, the flow of going from goal to problem to solution, and I know how they link to each other.

So this way, you don't have to feel like you have to fumble on the spot.

Once you build that foundation of mental flexibility, what you will realize is the second mistake and the third mistake are easier to solve.

Because in the second one, let's talk about that difficult Q&A, those hostile stakeholders who are asking us difficult questions, poking holes, saying, "Hey, you said this, but why don't we do this another way? I saw someone else doing it a different way."

And the mistake here is: when they ask you difficult questions, you defend and follow their frame.

Instead, what we want to do is steer, not follow.

And specifically, we are going to steer with... I'll talk about this in a moment.

This mistake is very common because senior leaders, usually, they have strong opinions. They're pretty loud about things and they're quick to say, "Well,

strong opinions. They're pretty loud about things and they're quick to say, "Well, how do we know that this is true?" Or, "How do we know that this is the right approach?

Why don't we just take another approach that I saw someone else in the industry try, and it worked?"

And this puts you in an awkward position, right? Because there's two options.

One, you defend it and say, "No, you're wrong because we did all this analysis."

But now the room has to pick a side. Do they pick your side? Do they pick the leader's side?

It's a very messy situation to be in.

And you know that they just say, "Well, you know, anyway, look into what it is that I just said."

And now all of your research hasn't been expressed and now you have more work to do.

The second thing is to go quiet, right? "Okay, that's an option too. Maybe we can look into that."

right? "Okay, that's an option too. Maybe we can look into that."

Again, the loud voice wins, even though you've already done the work and did the analysis of why your solution works.

Both are not ideal.

Instead, I would recommend a third option that most people don't see, which is: put aside this fear of, "Oh my gosh, they are attacking what I'm saying," and make it not an ego thing.

See that actually what they're challenging is not me, it's just some sort of assumption that they have.

So let's say, you know, they say, "Oh, you suggested this, why don't we do that?"

They are challenging whether the method is the right one.

So they are talking about assumptions.

So instead of defending yourself and the method, what you want to do is surface what is actually being discussed right now, which is the assumption.

Let me give you an example for this.

Say you are suggesting, let's have a phased rollout for our product.

And the VP halfway through is like, "Yeah, but why are we phasing this thing? Let's just roll it out all at once. Isn't that better?"

Instead of scrambling to say, "Oh yeah, but then we need to test this and when we look at the analysis, it should be something else," instead of going into all that, don't follow their frame.

Instead, steer it back to, "Oh, okay, yeah. And I think that's definitely an option. The assumption there is that support can handle all support volumes from day one."

option. The assumption there is that support can handle all support volumes from day one."

That's the assumption that the VP is making.

So you say, "Oh, Bob from support, do you think we can do this from day one and roll everything out?"

Now it's not about, "Oh, is Vicky right? Is the VP right?" It's,

"Is the assumption right that we can support all of the volume from day one?"

And then it's just a very clean yes or no.

Bob from support can jump in and say, "Oh, we can do it," which in that case, okay, great. They'll share what resources they need and we move on.

Or it's, "Oh, we can't."

So then it comes back: okay, let's talk about the other assumption. Are you assuming that speed to market is important?

We can discuss that, right? See if there are things that we can do to tweak the plan.

And now there's a lot more collaboration going on, even though the question was difficult.

So what we want to do is move away from defending and move towards collaborating.

And that's only possible if we can talk about facts and not personal feelings.

Surfacing assumptions is what's going to get us to collaborate better.

This is how your expertise actually shows, how clearly you're thinking about things so that everyone can go on to problem-solving.

There are lots of ways of surfacing the assumptions. I'm going to cover it in my course down below. So if you want to go deeper with this, definitely check that out.

In the meantime, let's go to mistake number three.

Mistake number three is thinking that "think fast, talk smart" is a knowledge problem. It's

an "I'm not smart enough" problem. An "I'm just not built to talk on the spot" kind of problem.

No, actually what this is, is just a cognitive load problem.

So this is the one that ties everything together.

Because in mistake number one, we talked about, right, when you prep, you want to prep some cognitive flexibility.

Step number two, instead of following other people's logic, you are going to keep your eye on the assumption.

And all of this is to say, in real time, you're not focusing on all of these different things.

Because as you are in the project, what you have is lots of things, right?

You know the dependencies.

You know the deadlines and milestones.

You know all of the data, the analysis.

You know all of these stakeholders that are involved and everything that's related to that.

And so when you're trying to hold everything in that meeting because you think, "Oh, and I have to talk about this and that, and what if they ask about this and that," it becomes nearly impossible to function because our working memory can carry, it used to be people thought, the rule of seven, no more than seven things.

But actually now they realize it's actually pretty close to four things only.

So if you carry more than that, then already you can't think at the same time, your working memory is overloaded.

And then it becomes a lot more difficult to then respond to things because you're still trying to carry, "Oh, but I have to continue with the presentation, so I need to keep all of these in my mind."

Instead, what you'll do is not worry about these things and focus on four things: anchors.

No more than four.

I would say in most conversations, you probably just need a couple, maybe three, to help you know exactly what these points are and then expand on them.

An anchor is a load-bearing idea.

The other ideas hang from them.

If you've heard of the pyramid principle, this is a classic demonstration of how to use anchors, which is: you have one key point and then it breaks down into two, three, and then within each, it breaks down again into three.

So what happens is, let's say, you know, there is a goal that we want to achieve.

So that could be one of your anchors if you decide to use that.

Then once you've talked about that, here are perhaps three problems that we can solve: one, two, and three.

Then you go into one of these at a time, double-click into problem one: here are possible solutions.

So instead of just focusing on putting everything together in a loose web, you have these anchors that bring together the ideas.

Putting it all together, you'll find that the old way of thinking about prepping for high-stakes conversations, answering questions, is very defensive, right?

Thinking about, "Oh, if they ask me, how am I going to scramble and get the right knowledge?"

No. Instead, what we're doing is going in with our anchors, going in looking for assumptions that people are challenging, and going in making sure that the way that we are prepping has mental flexibility and anticipating that we'll be jumping all over the place so that when they do happen, you know exactly how to act

and make sure you still stay focused and bring in your point of view and your expertise.

So if any of these mistakes resonated, let me know down below. I'll see you in the next video. Bye.