Episode #304: Never Fear The Q And A When Presenting In Japan

Obviously we all have some trepidation when it comes to Q&A, but Japan is quite far behind the rest of the advanced countries when it comes to public speaking. Let me put it on the table. The level of presentations here is abysmally low and excuses abound. People here talk about a “Japanese style” of doing public talks. This is their excuse for not being at the global standard for communication skills and it allow them to get away with amateur hour presentations. What they actually mean by “Japanese style” is they speak in a monotone, with a wooden face, use no gestures, make no eye contact, employ no pauses, Um and Ah with gay abandon, engage no one in the audience and are supremely boring. They kill everyone in the audience with their unprofessional slides - 8 point sized font, four different font types, five garish colours. They turn their slides into a psychological weapon of warfare which decimates their audience. Because everyone is so bad, this is thought to be a “style”, obviously different from “Western” presentations. It isn’t a style. It is just plain bad.

Not being properly educated in how to give professional presentations, the trickier bits like Q&A are even scarier territory. For any speaker, once the bell sounds for Q&A, the struggle is on. As the well-known American philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face”. Relatively speaking, Japan is a kindergarten for Q&A compared to Western audiences. The ferocity of questions here is kids stuff. So you would think that everyone would be very chipper about handling the Q&A, but that is not the case. Here are some areas of the concern we found, when we polled our Japanese students of presenting.

1. If the audience is not familiar to us we get nervous
The reality here is that strangers are confronting for Japanese. The chances of having a lifetime of speaking to familiar audiences would be statistically impossible, I would say. The inference here is that it is less daunting to speak to a “tame” audience who, because they know us, won’t unleash fury upon our heads during the questions component of the talk.

Unfamiliar audiences should be the considered the norm. I have delivered over 550 speeches so far and I cannot recall every giving a talk to the same audience twice. The way to deal with this “unfamiliarity” is to be well prepared and to have thoroughly rehearsed beforehand. This is a tell. I would guess 0.001% of Japanese presenters have ever rehearsed their talk.

2. I am not sure if I can understand the question properly and also not sure if it is okay to ask them to repeat the question
Japanese society is very polite, so that is why until recently, you would be lucky to get any questions at your talk at all. The thinking has been that it is impolite. The nuance is that by asking a question, you are implying the speaker wasn’t clear enough in their oration. Also I don’t think any Western audiences would even consider the possibility that it isn’t allowable to ask the questioner to repeat their question. In Japan, that request implies the questioner wasn’t clear enough the first time and so is a veiled criticism. Because the request for the repeat of the question is made in public, there is the possibility that the questioner will lose face and we can’t have that.

My advice - politely ask the questioner for clarification on their impenetrable question. Japan is a polite place, so ask politely and put yourself at fault and not the speaker. You might say, “Thank you for your question. I really want to answer it correctly, so would you mind repeating it once more for me?”.

3. Not clear on how to answer the question
This will happen to all of us. In my case, I do a lot of public speaking here in the Japanese language and I always find the Q&A the most difficult. This is not for the ferocity of the questions, but because of the fog of the language. Japanese is a highly circuitous language and vagary is a prized achievement. Sometimes, I have no clue what they are asking me.

If we can’t answer the question, then we are human. We cannot always be the font of all knowledge and there will always be occasions where we just don’t have an answer for that question. We should apologise and fess up straight away. “Thank you for your question. I am afraid I don’t know the answer to it at this point. After the talk, let’s exchange business cards and I will do my best to come back to you with an answer after I do more research on that topic”. No one will complain about handling it in this way.

4. No questions emerge because the audience weren’t paying any attention to the speaker
Most talks in Japan are supremely dull, so naturally the audience escapes to a more interesting place like their smart phone. Suddenly the Q&A springs up and as they haven’t being paying attention, they have no idea what to ask about. The call for questions goes unanswered, so there springs forth this painful, embarrassing silence, as everyone carefully scrutinises their shoes, ensuring zero eye contact with anyone. The speaker is left high and dry and the talk finishes on a low note of disinterest. It feels like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room, the speaker deflates and then in short order, departs.

If no questions are forthcoming, ask your own question: “A question I am often asked is….”. This will often break the ice for someone else to muscle up the courage to ask their own question. I am always amazed at well his works in Japan. No one wants to go first. But interestingly they are happy to go second after you started with your own question to yourself. After doing this, If nothing is still forthcoming, then do a final call for more questions. If none emerge then give your final close and finish the proceedings.

Here are two basic rules for answering any question. Always repeat the question if it is neutral, to make sure everyone in the audience heard it and to give yourself valuable thinking time before attempting to answer it. If it is a hostile question, then paraphrase it by stripping out all the emotion and invective and make it sound neutral. For example, “Is it true you are losing money and that ten percent of the staff are going to be fired before Christmas?”. “Thank you, the question was about current business performance” and then you answer it. We call this taisabaki in karate – you slip off to the side, away from confronting the full force of your opponent’s attack.

We will face Q&A when giving our talks. Changing our mindset about welcoming the opportunity is a good place to start. We can add more information, we couldn’t squeeze into the talk. We can elaborate on a theme we raised. We get a chance to engage more deeply with our audience. When we shoot down a nasty, vicious, brutish, hostile question and destroy it, this makes us a legend of pubic speaking and adds serious luster to our personal brand. Bring on the questions!