Improve Your Communication Skills, 2nd Edition

Answering questions 
Many presenters are as worried about the question session as 
about the presentation itself. A few guidelines can help to turn 
your question session from a trial into a triumph: 
• Decide when to take questions
. This will probably be at the 
end. But you might prefer to take questions during the 
presentation. This is more difficult to manage but can 
improve your relationship with the audience. 
• Anticipate the most likely questions
. These may be 
‘Frequently Asked Questions’ that you can easily 
foresee. Others may arise from the particular 
circumstances of the presentation. 
• Use a ‘plant’
. Ask somebody to be ready with a question 
to start the session off. Audiences are sometimes 
hesitant at the end of a presentation about breaking the 
atmosphere. 
• Answer concisely
. Force yourself to be brief. 
• Answer honestly
. You can withhold information, but 
don’t lie. Someone in the audience will almost certainly 
see through you. 
• Take questions from the whole audience
. From all parts of 
the room and from different ‘social areas’. 
• Answer the whole audience
. Don’t let questions seduce 
you into private conversations. Make sure the audience 
has heard the question. 
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

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134 Improve your Communication Skills
• If you don’t know, say so
. And promise what you’ll do to 
answer later. 
A simple format for answering a 
question 
• Repeat the question if necessary. This helps you 
understand it, helps the audience to hear it, and gives 
you time to think about your answer. 
• Give a single answer. Make only one point. 
• Now give one reason for your answer. 
• Give an example that illustrates the point. 
Of course, it may not be easy to think of all these as you 
spontaneously respond to a question. But if you slow down 
and try to think this simple format through, you will 
probably answer more succinctly and clearly. 
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

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Writing well is probably the most technically difficult form of 
communication. It requires skill, understanding and a good deal 
of creativity. And we are judged on the quality of our writing. It 
has to act as our ambassador in our absence. 
We all know effective writing when we see it. It does its job 
clearly and quickly. It says what the writer wants to say; nothing 
gets in the way. Above all, effective writing gets results.