You're in the hot seat during a Q&A session. How do you handle aggressive audience questioning?

Stay calm and composed. Listen carefully to the question without interrupting. Respond respectfully, focusing on the facts. If needed, acknowledge the emotion behind the question but steer the conversation back to the topic. If you don’t have an answer, it's okay to say you'll follow up later. Keep your tone steady and avoid getting defensive.

When faced with aggressive questioning, maintain poise and composure. Acknowledge the questioner's concern with respect, as this defuses tension. Address the query with clarity and evidence, steering the response to highlight your key points. If the question is confrontational, remain calm and avoid becoming defensive—frame your answers constructively. Redirect the conversation toward common goals or areas of agreement. By handling challenging questions with grace and confidence, you demonstrate both your expertise and your ability to manage difficult situations diplomatically.

Take a deep breath, inhaling the ambience of "this" particular moment, process it (realize your existence in "this" moment) - and release the breath, exhaling "your" ambience into "this" moment. Inhaling and Exhaling are like the act of making a boat to move forward by rowing the boat further - To move further you must keep rowing forward and backward (both are equally significant). And as you release the breath, observe your surroundings - the people around you. Establish a Natural eye contact with everyone, with a very subtle smile manifesting on your face. After observing, look down and look up with confidence. You now realized that you are prepared! You're always prepared.

Listen them till their very last breath. Let them exhale their complete breath at a time. Meanwhile you may choose to nod a little but not much (very subtle). Maintain a calmer breathing, as you listen their questions - Don't overwhelm yourself with sudden or quick breathing. Calmness will come with a Calm Breathing. You may maintain a natural eye-contact to the person asking question, however, don't keep it for long. Keep shifting your Eye-contact within around 7 seconds. And while shifting your eye-contact, do not shift downward or upward - but sideways (horizontally) - you may look left or right in the mean time. Now, you have listened the question completely till the last breath. Take a deep breath before answering anything.

Answer to the best of your Knowledge and experiences - Answer what you know "till" and "at" that moment. You may address that you have understood your question (if you have); Use the phrases: "Okay, I got you" or "Okay I got your question, and here's what I have to say..." And if you are not able to understand the question - do NOT. I repeat Do Not, hesitate to ask. "Excuse me, actually I wasn't able to understand your question. Can you please repeat it for me. I'd be grateful. Thanks!" Always address and contemplate the whole question before saying anything.

Something I try to always remember is that your next customer or employer could be in the crowd and these difficult questions or situations can be a great opportunity to show how you deal with adversity. I will often ask for a question to be asked a different way if I need an extra moment to formulate a thought . Sometimes our first response may not be the best one

Knowing your team BATNA before the meeting is important step of preparation, where each player knows their strength (and weakness) to step-in as needed per situation. Team building events prior this critical meeting should help to make it less stressful and even more playful - often a gentle comment can dissolve a tension in a room or “follow up” question, note can move the meeting forward. Make sure if a team member is not in a room, to have him/her ready for deep expertise response on a phone or a conference call.