Faced with a question that catches us unawares, who has never dreamed of immediately formulating a striking response?

In these situations, our desire to bring the best response is paradoxically our worst enemy, as it impairs our attention. Did you never find yourself thinking of your response before your counterpart even finished their sentence? This desire to mentally prepare is natural: in a dialogue, our brain permanently seeks to elaborate stocks of “good answers” to be ready when the time comes. This presents two disadvantages: we respond more to what we think we have understood of our counterparts’ statements than to what they have actually told us; and if, in addition, the topic is sensitive, our brain focuses its responses on the key words that put us in alert, which leads us to answer in an exaggeratedly defensive manner.

The priority thus consists in slowing down our thinking. Forcing yourselves to actively listen, until the end, enables more targeted responses and reduces the risk of an irrelevant answer. Finally, we will gain by reformulating the situation, not as a challenge or a threat, but as an opportunity to clarify our point of view, to nuance it or to bring a complementary light, which considerably influences the tone of our responses.

Source: Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques, Matt Abrahams, Stanford Graduate School of Business, December 2014.