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CHAPTER 1
The Four Areas of Disclosure
Providing multidimensional answers to questions creates opportunities for you — opportunities to reveal talents, tell a memorable story, convey unique knowledge. Most importantly, inclusive responses open the door to dialogue. Whether it's a job interview, sales meeting, or a first date, instead of the encounter being a bland question-and-answer session, it's a collaboration. One result: You have at least as much control as the other person does over the conversation.
The four areas of disclosure are people, places, time, and things. When you link your responses to these four areas, you mentally organize information in a way that makes it more complete. Depending on the question, you may naturally focus on one area more than another. The important thing to know is what other types of information you want to make sure the questioner hears.
The four disclosure areas are overtly tied to certain interrogatives:
1. People: Who?
2. Places: Where?
3. Things: What? How?
4. Time: When?
The interrogative launches your thinking; however, it should not limit it. For example, people exist in a context (place); take actions (things); and have a yesterday, today, and tomorrow (time). When you infuse your replies with multiple subject areas, you don't just answer a question, you respond to it.
Categories of Responders
When you answer questions right now — before you've learned techniques that help you control a conversation — you probably have a dominant style. We put people into four categories based on how they tend to answer questions:
1. Handler
2. Dictator
3. Commentator
4. Evader
Identifying how you tend to respond to questions will help you adapt the techniques and tips we offer to your own style. If none of these descriptions seems to describe your typical approach to answering questions, share them with a friend or colleague and ask for an assessment. Keep in mind that there are distinct merits to each style, so if your friend calls you a dictator, for example, don't take offense. Build on your style; don't fight it.
Handler
A handler contemplates the best way to answer your question. She might drip a little information and then wait for a comeback to determine whether or not to say more. Another handler trait is to offer multiple answers in a single response so the questioner gets the message that there may be several good answers.
A handler is predisposed to adapt quickly to weaving more than one disclosure area into a response.
Brian was having his first meeting with a potential client for his public relations firm. Dr. S.S. Rodgers's book was just about to be published, and she was interviewing publicists who could likely get her on television. Brian opened with the question, "What are your goals for the campaign?"
Dr. Rodgers: I'd like to be on national television.
Brian: What particular types of shows do you have in mind, Dr. Rodgers?
Dr. Rodgers: To do national shows that women watch and rely on to learn about health issues — although I will say that the same kinds of shows in major markets are appealing.
Brian: What kind of television experience do you have currently?
Dr. Rodgers: It's all local, but I've gotten great feedback. I'm very comfortable in front of the camera and am open to media training if you think that's important to get a national spot.
Brian: Why do you think national television is the best focus for your campaign?
Dr. Rodgers: One of my friends who is a colleague and author has gotten great results from TV exposure. He made the New York Times bestseller list.
Brian: If we had a hard time getting a TV spot, how much would a review or article in the New York Times please you?
Dr. Rodgers: I think that would be a fabulous springboard to getting some TV exposure.
In this scenario, the handler isn't plagued with uncertainty. Dr. Rodgers feels the need to balance her answers, but she is driving toward a single idea: She wants a lot of eyes on her. The PR consultant wants to design a program that will hook Dr. Rodgers, and that cannot be done unless it includes broadcast media exposure.
Dictator
We mean nothing pejorative in saying the current president, Donald Trump, comes to mind with this type. A dictator delivers an answer definitively. The negative aspect of a dictator's response is that he has no hesitation about presenting a personal opinion as fact. He may also have a decisive quality to his responses that can be off-putting to people who prefer informed responses over opinions.
A dictator can be extremely good, or extremely bad, at weaving in a number of disclosure areas. The ability depends on what the individual gives weight to and how well that emphasis satisfies the questioner — or the audience on whose behalf the interviewer poses the question, as in the case of journalists.
When asked about the employment status in the "motor car and truck situation" in a January 2, 1942 press conference, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deftly addressed multiple disclosure areas. Keep in mind that the United States had just declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, one day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Instead of opening his response to a "what" question with a litany of things being done, however, he turned first to people and kept looping back to people. A dictator has a distinct agenda, and that agenda will shape the answer to any question:
People will be laid off. Incidentally, the — I have had quite a number of reports from the leaders in labor organization in automobile plants, and they are just about 100 percent in their understanding of the matter, and say that they entirely approve of retooling, and that their people — their members — are willing to be out of work for a little while, if it will aid in the general defense program; it being of course understood that hardship will be taken care of in the meantime, and that they will return to their jobs just as soon as the new tooling comes in.
Commentator
A commentator is thorough, gives comprehensive answers, and in some cases, he sometimes wades into "too much information" territory. He may provide such a multifaceted answer that it could change the direction of the questioning.
In an interview with Terry Gross for Fresh Air, actor Joaquin Phoenix showed commentator tendencies. When Gross asked him about his character in the film The Master talking out of the side of his mouth, Phoenix responded:
My dad sometimes would talk out of the side; he'd clench down one side of his mouth. And Ijust thought it represented tension in this way, somebody that's just blocked and tight.
Phoenix found the image so compelling that he had a dentist install metal brackets in his mouth. Using rubber bands to force his jaw shut on one side, he tried to replicate his father's speech when his teeth were clenched. Describing this process was just the beginning of a detailed, rambling explanation. He suddenly became aware of his digression and interrupted himself:
If I was driving and I heard this, I'd change the channel ... I'd be like, "Joaquin, shut up."
This is precisely how someone asking a commentator a question may feel.
On the positive side, a natural commentator has no blocks to bringing multiple subject areas into an answer. The challenge for a commentator is paring the information to keep the response on point.
Evader
A person who sidesteps questions habitually probably just has an idiosyncratic way of listening and processing information; we would call that person an evader. Another version of the evader is someone who feels uncomfortable answering questions for some reason.
Other types of people become evaders when they want to avoid answering because they have something to hide. In legal terms, when someone deliberately gives an evasive answer in the discovery process, it's regarded as a failure to answer, and it's potentially a serious offense. We are not talking about those situations or deliberate prevaricators here.
The typical evader is someone who can frustrate people who are more linear thinkers by simply going off topic. If you ask, "What did you think of that movie?" the person might answer by telling you how the lead actor used to be married to another actor who died tragically, and this movie reminded her of their ill-fated love affair. That's one way of telling you what she thought of the movie, although it's not the angle you had in mind.
A person like this might be a creative problem-solver who comes at challenges from a different perspective than most people. She might be a valued member of her team despite the fact that she exasperates everyone else on it when she answers a question.
An evader might be very comfortable weaving in multiple subject areas in a response, but like the commentator, might struggle to include only the information that has relevance.
Focus on the Four Areas
When you know how to frame information about people, places, things, and time, you will have an easier time integrating it into your responses.
People
Among the many common ways to sort people are physical appearance, culture, personality, religion, nationality, and marital status. The categories are endless if you sort people by what they eat, how they dress, what music they listen to, what language they speak, and whether they are left- or right-handed. All these categories have associated vocabularies to help you describe people.
Many times, the person you will be describing in response to a question is yourself, so having the vocabulary to describe who you are may be the most important set of "people terms" you can integrate.
Give some thought to how you capture your dominant qualities as a professional, a friend, a partner, a visitor to Disneyland. And then, we recommend you consider how one or more of the "ten characteristics of really interesting people" might apply to you and become part of a conversation about you. If you are in a situation like a job interview or a reception at a conference, the value of having terms like these associated with you could go a long way.
These characteristics were identified by cartoonist Jessica Hagy, who readily admits that she has no credentials to say anything about social science! Nonetheless, we think her terms are provocative enough to share. They can help get your juices flowing about how you might talk about yourself. Hagy, whose how-to guide is called How to Be Interesting, identifies the characteristics as follows:
1. Adventurous. The world outside is always HD, 3D, color, and smellavision.
2. Generous. Share what you discover.
3. Active. Even the slowest progress is progress forward.
4. Strange. Shine a spotlight on your weirdness. Get it insured.
5. Caring. If you don't give a damn about anything, nobody's going to give a damn about you.
6. Humble. Minimize the swagger. Egos get in the way of ideas.
7. Daring. Try and fail, and try a few more times.
8. Original. Hop off the bandwagon. Host a shindig of your own.
9. Brave. Grow a pair. You need to be ballsy to get it done.
10. Self-assured. Ignore the scolds. Boo to those who say, "Sit down. Behave yourself. Keep your head down. Get in line." It's their problem, not yours.
Places
Responses related to places could address directions, location, appearance, layout, or function. Tips to help you communicate place information in an answer:
* Use reference points that are familiar to the person.
* Recall how the person may have talked about a place and then "speak her language." For example, if she happened to say, "We're moving the offices to a building near the bell tower," then you have a sense she thinks in terms of landmarks. Another person might say, "We're moving the offices to a building uptown and northwest of here."
* Communicate scale as accurately as you can. Assuring a customer that the warehouse is full of the desired inventory is different if the warehouse is 2,000 square feet or 10,000 square feet.
* Communicate distance as meaningfully as you can. If you're asked at a job interview how much of a commute you would have, and you're coming into Manhattan from New Jersey, putting the answer in terms of the number of subway stops makes more sense than saying you live ten miles away.
A place would commonly start with "where," however, it could be phrased something like, "What's the location of your favorite conference facility?"
When we were developing this book, the importance of providing a complete answer that included a specific place came into play in an unusual way. Maryann asked Jim about some of his early work experiences. As part of his response, he mentioned that he had worked for Graceland Fairlawn cemetery in Decatur, Illinois. Maryann asked her partner, also named Jim, where his grandparents were buried because she knew they were from Decatur, Illinois. It was the same cemetery, and Jim Pyle was later able to help the other Jim with issues related to the family burial plots there.
Things
Things fall into these categories:
* Mechanical: A bicycle, a chair, a ballpoint pen
* Electronic: Computers, mobile phones, fitness trackers
* Structure: A building, a bridge, the Eiffel Tower
* Process: Using a spreadsheet, baking a cake, brushing lint off your jacket
* Concept: Democracy, capitalism, heaven
* Expendable: Toilet paper, a candy bar, hand sanitizer
Many things combine mechanical, electronic, and expendable aspects, so it is common to get crossover. A car has mechanical parts, electronic components, and expendable pieces, and you could say the same for some buildings.
Keeping these categories in mind, a thing question could be, "How do handle firing someone?" — as in a process or technique — as well as, "What kind of snow blower do you prefer?"
Time
Every event is connected to its past and future, as well as its present. It occurs at a certain moment but also in a context: Something happened before it and something followed it.
If you were investigating a car crash, you would want information to help you construct an entire timeline: the seconds leading up to the crash, the crash itself, and the moments that followed. And you would want to look at that timeline backward and forward to ensure you had all the pieces and they fit together tightly.
For most people, memory tends to be linear; going forward makes sense, but traveling backward in time might be challenging. Yet, there are advantages to practicing that backward approach to a timeline. When pressed to remember things out of sequence or in reverse sequence, our brains tend to work differently. It's possible to recall things we overlooked before.
Questioners often hide information they want about time in a question — and don't even realize it. Instead of the question starting with "When," it might be something like, "How did you manage to get everyone out of the building after the alarm went off?" Your response needs to capture a timeline as well as a process. What you did is only part of the story; what you did when is a more complete picture of your accomplishment.
Exercise
Many websites offer trivia games and quizzes. Pick one and explore how your ability to weave multiple subject areas into an answer makes the answer much more interesting.
The example we chose is the Bond Quiz — that's James Bond — because we've both seen all the Bond films. Pretend you are also a Bond fan and are at a party. Someone asks you, "What was the name of the first Bond film?" You could just answer, "Dr. No." You win, but you aren't very interesting; you're just a trivia buff. What if you took an extra few seconds to say,
Dr. No. in 1962, and the action is in Jamaica. Ursula Andress was the Bond girl — and she showed up again five years later in the funny Bond movie — the first Casino Royale.
Have fun choosing a trivia category that is your area of expertise and responding to the questions with answers that integrate as many of the subject areas as you can.
Donald Davidson's ability to do this changed his life. Davidson had cultivated an intense interest in the classic motor race known to all as the Indianapolis 500. Leaving his job as a cinema projectionist in Salisbury, Wilshire, in South West England, he showed up in 1964 with suitcase in hand at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After a few hours of talking with race officials and demonstrating his "selective retention" memory of every driver, car, team, manufacturer, and race statistic, he was given full-access credentials and invited to the master control tower of the speedway to talk with Sid Collins, the radio "Voice of the 500." Over the world's largest single-day broadcast radio program, he asked Donald random questions found only in books, archive films, and the collective consciousness of die-hard race fans. In theory, no one person could store so many details and stories about the Indy 500.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Control the Conversation"
by .
Copyright © 2018 James O. Pyle and Maryann Karinch.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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