In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions... When It Counts

by Jerry Weissman

  President Bush still seemed puzzled, so Carole Simpson intervened again.

  I think she means more the recession…the economic problems today the country faces rather than the deficit.

  Now clearer, President Bush launched into his answer.

  Well, listen, you ought to be in the White House for a day and hear what I hear and see what I see and read the mail I read and touch the people that I touch from time to time. I was in the Lomax AME Church. It's a black church just outside of Washington, DC. And I read in the bulletin about teenage pregnancies, about the difficulties that families are having to make ends meet. I talk to parents. I mean, you've got to care. Everybody cares if people aren't doing well.

  His voice rising defensively, he continued.

  But I don't think it's fair to say, you haven't had cancer. Therefore, you don't know what it's like. I don't think it's fair to say, you know, whatever it is, that if you haven't been hit by it personally. But everybody's affected by the debt because of the tremendous interest that goes into paying on that debt everything's more expensive. Everything comes out of your pocket and my pocket. So it's that.

  But I think in terms of the recession, of course you feel it when you're president of the US. And that's why I'm trying to do something about it by stimulating the export, vesting more, better education systems.

  Thank you. I'm glad to clarify it. [3.1]

  But he didn't clarify it. President Bush's long, circuitous route to answer the young woman's question created the distinct impression that he either wasn't listening or was completely out of touch. This negative impression compounded and exacerbated a similar impression he had made just eight months before this painful exchange. In February of 1992, the president paid a visit to the National Grocers Association convention in Orlando, Florida, where he was shown a common electronic bar code scanner. According to reports in several newspapers, he seemed amazed to learn about a product that had been in supermarkets since the 1980s.

  James Carville, Clinton's campaign manager, seized upon the bar code scanner episode and magnified it to major proportions with his notorious slogan, "It's the economy, stupid." To a nation mired in an economic downturn, Marisa Hall's question was right on target. It was also to become the point of no return for George H. Bush, as the public opinion polls show in Figure 3.2.

  Figure 3.2. 1992 Presidential public opinion polls. [3.2]

  Politicians consider the day after the last major party nominating convention to be the formal start of presidential election campaigns. In 1992, when the Republican Convention ended (8/14), Clinton had surged into a 17-point lead over Bush for a variety of reasons, high among them the troubled economy. Moreover, given that the Democratic Convention preceded the Republican Convention that year, the media exposure benefited the challenger. This is known in the political trade as "bounce."

  As so often happens, in the week following the Republican Convention (8/21), Bush, with his own media exposure, got his own "bounce" and began to close the gap between himself and Clinton to 14 points. Over the next several weeks, (9/25 through 10/2), Bush held steady in the polls. During that same period, Ross Perot became a candidate, causing Clinton's numbers to drop precipitously to only an 8-point lead over Bush. By the beginning of October, the campaign had turned into a horse race. Then on October 15, the town hall debate took place, and Marisa Hall asked her fateful question. The very next day, the numbers for Bush and Clinton began to diverge and continued in those directions until Election Day in November.

  James Carville, reflecting on the impact of Miss Hall's question in his memoir of the campaign said, "I would have paid to have that question asked!" [3.3]

  Never again would such an incident occur in presidential debates. Four years later in 1996, the candidates eliminated follow-on questions de facto. President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole, two highly skilled debaters, were such good listeners that, in their town-hall format, none of the citizens asked a single follow-on question. Both candidates always got the key issue and threaded the needle with their answers from their respective points of view.

  Four years later, in 2000, the possibility of follow-on questions was eliminated de jure. When George H. Bush's son, George W. Bush, participated in the same open town-hall format (against then-Vice President Al Gore), the rules changed. At the start of that year's debate, the moderator, the veteran PBS newsman, Jim Lehrer, announced:

  The audience participants are bound by the following rule: they shall not ask follow-up questions or otherwise participate in the extended discussion and the questioner's microphone will be turned off after he or she completes asking the question. Those are the rules. [3.4]

  Four years later, in 2004, when President George W. Bush committed to another town-hall debate format (this time against Senator John F. Kerry), his representatives set even more rigorous ground rules in advance. The moderator, Charles Gibson of ABC News, announced them at the start of the debate on October 8, 2004.

  Earlier today, each audience member gave me two questions on cards like this, one they'd like to ask the president, the other they'd like to ask the senator. I have selected the questions to be asked and the order. No one has seen the final list of questions but me, certainly not the candidates. No audience member knows if he or she will be called upon. Audience microphones will be turned off after a question is asked. [3.5]

  In 1992, of course, Marisa Hall's microphone was left open for all the world to hear her resounding "How?" As decisive and as devastating as the events resulting from her follow-on question appear, they were even worse for George H. Bush. Yes, he did look at his wristwatch as she asked her question and sent the message that he wasn't listening, but after he looked at his watch he had another 55 seconds to formulate a better response. That interval was occupied by Ross Perot's answer. Miss Hall's question was addressed to all three men, and Perot went first.

  As soon as the young woman finished asking her question, Perot volunteered:

  May I answer that?

  The moderator approved.

  Well, Mr. Perot…yes, of course.

  Perot asked:

  Who do you want to start with?

  Marisa Hall explained:

  My question is for each of you, so…

  Perot took the floor.

  It caused me to disrupt my private life and my business to get involved in this activity. That's how much I care about it. And believe me, if you knew my family and if you knew the private life I have, you would agree in a minute that that's a whole lot more fun than getting involved in politics.

  But I have lived the American dream. I came from very modest background. Nobody's been luckier than I've been, all the way across the spectrum, and the greatest riches of all are my wife and children. That's true of any family. But I want all the children…I want these young people up here to be able to start with nothing but an idea like I did and build a business. But they've got to have a strong basic economy and if you're in debt, it's like having a ball and chain around you. I just figure, as lucky as I've been, I owe it to them and I owe it to the future generations and on a very personal basis, I owe it to my children and grandchildren. [3.6]

  Despite Perot's succinct, empathic, and relevant answer, George H. Bush took his turn next with an answer that was far enough off target to invite interruption…three interruptions…and create the distinct perception that he wasn't listening.

  It got still worse for President Bush. Following his rambling answer and awkward exchange with Miss Hall, Bill Clinton's turn came. As Bush headed back to his stool, the challenger rose from his and walked toward Miss Hill, addressing her directly:

  Tell me how it's affected you again.

  His approach put Miss Hall at a momentary loss for words.

  Um…

  Continuing toward her, Clinton prodded her memory.

  You know people who've lost their jobs and lost their homes?

  Marisa Hall agreed.

  Well, yeah, uh-huh.

>   "Well, yeah, uh-huh." She could just as well have said, "You were listening!" In that one pivotal moment, Bill Clinton became the complete opposite of George H. Bush. In that one pivotal moment, the die was cast for the dark horse challenger's victory at the expense of the incumbent.

  The moment was a long time in the making. Clinton's movement, eye contact, and body language were fully intentional. As James Carville described in his memoir, "We did practice having the governor get off his stool and walk down to make contact with the man or woman asking the question…we would always remind him, 'Go talk to that person. Be engaged in what he has to say.'" [3.7]

  There was also the matter of Clinton's words. One month after President Bush's moment with the bar code scanner that worked against him, Clinton faced a challenging moment of his own that he turned into an advantage. On March 26, 1992, Clinton appeared at a political fund raiser in New York. During his speech, Bob Rafsky, a member of an organization called AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, interrupted and accused Clinton of not doing enough to combat AIDS. Clinton departed from his speech to respond to Rafsky, and the exchange became heated. For a short while, the two went toe-to-toe, but Clinton finally put an end to the quarrel when he said, "I've got friends who have died of AIDS. I feel your pain." [3.8]

  "I feel your pain." Early on in his run for office, Bill Clinton saw and understood the power of those four words. They were to become the leitmotif of his campaign and the engine he would ride to victory and the White House. The underlying implication in those words is not only "I heard you," but also, and more importantly, "I care about you."

  As soon as Bill Clinton heard Marisa Hall say, "Well, yeah, uh-huh," he picked up the ball and ran with it.

  Well, I've been governor of a small state for 12 years. I'll tell you how it's affected me. Every year Congress and the president sign laws that make us do more things and gives us less money to do it with.

  Now Clinton shifted into overdrive. He made his entire point of view identical with that of Marisa Hall's.

  I see people in my state, middle class people…their taxes have gone up in Washington and their services have gone down while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts. I have seen what's happened in this last four years when…in my state, when people lose their jobs there's a good chance I'll know them by their names. When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it. When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them.

  And I've been out here for 13 months meeting in meetings just like this ever since October, with people like you all over America…

  When Clinton said, "people like you," Marisa Hall nodded her head silently. She could just as well have lifted her microphone again and said, "You were listening!"

  Just then, the live television broadcast cut to a close two-shot of Clinton and Marisa Hall, and captured her assenting nod (see Figure 3.3).

  Figure 3.3. Bill Clinton answers Marisa Hall's question.

  Bill Clinton rolled on.

  …people that have lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost their health insurance. What I want you to understand is the national debt is not the only cause of that.

  Even though Carole Simpson had, during President Bush's answer, tactfully and tacitly corrected Miss Hall's confusion of the national debt with the recession, Clinton took the opportunity to repeat the young woman's original words…the national debt…and, in so doing, further validated her. Then he answered her.

  It is because America has not invested in its people. It is because we have not grown. It is because we've had 12 years of trickle down economics. We've gone from first to twelfth in the world in wages. We've had four years where we've produced no private sector jobs. Most people are working harder for less money than they were making ten years ago.

  It is because we are in the grip of a failed economic theory. And this decision you're about to make better be about what kind of economic theory you want, not just people saying I'm going to go fix it but what are we going to do? I think what we have to do is invest in American jobs, American education, control American health care costs and bring the American people together again. [3.9]

  The chain reaction of repercussions that nullified George H. Bush's bid for re-election can be traced back to a single pivotal moment: providing the wrong answer to a question. That moment was marked "at Virginia Commonwealth University [where] 105 uncommitted voters watched the proceedings with 'debate meters' in hand, instantly recording when they had a positive or negative reaction to what the candidates were saying. Bush scored one of his two most negative responses of the evening with his answer to Hall." [3.10]

  That moment also was marked by Marisa Hall. After the debate she said, "President Bush never answered it. It kind of upset me. He started talking about going to that black church, and then he started talking about his grandchildren." She voted for Clinton. [3.11]

  George H. Bush's fumbled answer, which set in motion an avalanche that brought down the house of the 41st Presidency, was a classic example of the critical blunder: "Ready, Fire, Aim!" He pulled the trigger before he had the target in his sights.

  While very few people get the opportunity to try to win the Presidency of the United States, every one who tries to win in business and, in fact, everyone who tries to win in any endeavor by seeking the concurrence of other people, must avoid the fatal mistake of not listening. The remedy is a seemingly simple but deceptively counter-intuitive two-step solution:

  Listen correctly

  Answer properly

  In the next chapter, you will learn the first step with a skill called Active Listening…and how close the first President Bush came to getting Marisa Hall's question right. In the succeeding chapters, you will learn how to answer properly and by Chapter Six, how George H. Bush might have answered her differently.

  This delay in providing you with prescriptive instruction about answers is completely intentional. It is specifically designed to drive a deep wedge between the tough question and your answer. When you learn just what to do in that gap, you will be able to avoid the all-too-common malady that troubled Falstaff, will trouble your audience, and ultimately will trouble your cause.

  Chapter 4

  Active Listening

  (Martial Art: Concentration)

  Let me tell you a story…about the Japanese Zen Master who received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. It was obvious to the master from the start of the conversation that the professor was not so much interested in learning about Zen as he was in impressing the master with his own opinions and knowledge. The master listened patiently and finally suggested that they have tea. The master poured his visitor's cup full and then kept pouring.

  The professor watched the cup overflowing until he could no longer restrain himself. "The cup is overfull, no more will go in!"

  "Like this cup," the master said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

  —Zen in the Martial Arts [4.1]

  Let's flash forward to the end of your next mission-critical presentation and assume that it was the performance of a lifetime. Everything went perfectly: Your narrative was eloquent, your Microsoft PowerPoint slides were illustrative, your delivery was expressive, and your audience watched and listened in spellbound silence.

  Now you open the floor to questions and you call on the gentleman in the middle of the back of the room. This is the moment of suspended animation we left at the end of Chapter 2, "Effective Management Implemented," which was Yield the Floor.

  The man starts asking a question, but it sounds like Greek to you. You can tell that it has something to do with the material you just delivered, but the point of his rambling question is unclear. Being a results-driven person, you are eager to provide an answer.

  That is precisely what happened to George H. Bush. He wanted to provide an answer to Marisa Hall, except that the answer he gave was not to the question she asked. She did not ask about his grandchildren or
teenage pregnancies, nor did she ask about a black church just outside of Washington, D.C. What did she want to know? What should President Bush have done instead of answering?

  Heed the advice of the Zen master: Empty your cup. Empty your mind of all your thoughts so that you can fill it instead with those of the questioner. Concentrate.

  Concentration is essential in every activity in the human experience, particularly in athletic endeavors, and even more particularly in the martial arts where mortality is at stake. This was vividly illustrated in the 2003 film, "The Last Samurai," in which Tom Cruise played an American soldier, who in his quest to become a Samurai warrior, learns to fight with a lethal sword. Director Edward Zwick captured Cruise's intense concentration by first shooting the swordfight in wide angles until a pivotal moment and then by replaying the same scene from Cruise's close-up point of view. When Cruise observes the same pivotal moment, he watches his opponent's actions in extreme slow motion, sees a fault, and understands how to defeat him. His concentration brought him victory.

  During your Q&A session, concentrate on your questioner's pivotal words as if in slow motion. This will be difficult to do in the heat of battle and under the glare of attention of the audience. It was difficult for Bill Clinton, the winner of the 1992 Presidential Debate and the election:

  You know, it's not easy to listen to people anytime. It's a lot easier to be a good talker than a good listener. But in that format, with all that pressure, with one hundred million people watching, it's probably even harder to be a good listener. I saw the American people sort of screaming for me to pay attention to them and listen to them.[4.2]

  The solution: Step on the brakes. Avoid the "Ready, Fire, Aim!" trap. Resist thinking of the answer and instead listen for the key issue. Concentrate. Listen for the one or two words that identify the essence of the question, the heart of the matter.

  Resist thinking of the answer and instead listen for the key issue.