Sometimes (Well, most of the times) one cannot understand why certain people find it difficult to answer the question first before going to their round about response.
E.g. When you ask them, “Hope you like the food here?” The response would be “Actually, I like the food that I had in a hotel near Bangalore during new year. It was awesome.” And you were expecting something like. “Yes, no, or its ok” and perhaps the long answer.
“How are you feeling?” “Well, I was OK until morning and then I had lunch and ice cream which I bought near by my place. We can get it home delivered. I had this butter scotch flavor. After that I had slept for a while and then went for an evening walk with my dog. Its pretty cold near my flat as there is a lot of open space. You should come there sometime. Oh by the way, I forgot that I had to take my medicine now. Thanks for reminding.”
What was that supposed to mean?
There is no limit to such things we keep hearing everyday. What makes it worse is continuation of same behavior at work in content writing, customer interactions, long emails, meetings etc.
One of the important rules of communication is to answer the question first and depending on the context continue giving your essay answer. With great difficulty, I started following three important steps. Not yet succeeded completely, but certainly started helping me and people who I speak to.
- Listen to the question completely
- Answer the question directly (Short answer)
- Follow the rest of the annexure if required (Long answer)
In fact most of the people who give indirect answers are not aware that they are doing it. So, it is important to be aware of this issue since one might mean several things by not giving a direct answer. Either you don’t know the answer or you don’t want to answer or you don’t care about the person who is asking the question.
So, check.
