The Art of Dodging Questions Revisited
Question dodging is intentionally avoiding the answering of a question. That might happen when the person questioned either does not know the answer or when the person being interrogated wants to avoid giving a direct response.
A study by Michael Norton of Harvard Business School and Todd Rogers of ideas42 and the Analyst Institute in the Journal of Experimental Psychology sheds light on the specifics of question-dodging, and why some are more susceptible to dodges than others.
According to them to know how to execute a successful dodge, we must explicate what a dodge actually is. The study uses the following definition:
"Success in question-dodging entails listeners being less likely to recall the question asked of a speaker when the speaker answers a different question than when the speaker answers the actual question ... A dodge is detected, on the other hand, when listeners recall the actual question asked despite the speaker's effort to dodge it by answering a similar question."
According to the study, "dodges can go undetected when a speaker responds to a question by offering an answer to a similar question rather than the actual question asked — provided that the listener's attention is not directed to explicitly assess whether the speaker answered the question asked."
Corporate Life trains you to dodge
Somehow corporate life teaches you some devious things. And one of them is how to try and deflect questions when you know the real answer to the question is going to cause some damage to you. And as you make yourself quickly up the tedious corporate ladder, you somehow can get only better at it.
A live demonstration of this became visible when Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was interlocuted by Elizabeth Warren of the Senate Banking Committee where Senator she grilled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf over a growing scandal at the major Wall Street bank involving thousands of employees who took private customer information to create 2 million fake accounts in order to meet sales targets. The scandal dates back to 2011.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Do you know how much money, how much value your stock holdings in Wells Fargo gained while this scam was underway?
JOHN STUMPF: Well, first of all, it was not a scam. And cross-sell is a way of deepening relationships. When customers—
The question asked by Sen Warren has nothing to do with cross-sell. So Mr Stumpfs answer is clearly trying to dodge this question. Or its an answer to some other question that Sen. Warren hasn't asked. Also when you have opened 2 million fake accounts, that is definitely not cross-sell or about deepening relationships!
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: We’ve been through this, Mr. Stumpf. I asked you a very simple question: Do you know how much the value of your stock went up while this scam was going on?
JOHN STUMPF: Yeah, it’s—all of my compensation is in our public filing.
Instead of answering the question directly he seems to say the data is available in the public domain.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Do you know how much it was?
JOHN STUMPF: It’s all in the public filing.
Third weak attempt at hiding the truth. But Sen. Warren has the right answer so she proceeds.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: All—you’re right. It is all in the public records, because I looked it up. While this scam was going on, you personally held an average of 6.75 million shares of Wells stock. The share price during this time period went up by about $30, which comes out to more than $200 million in gains, all for you personally—and thanks, in part, to those cross-sell numbers that you talked about on every one of those calls. You know, here’s what really gets me about this, Mr. Stumpf. If one of your tellers took a handful of $20 bills out of the cash drawer, they’d probably be looking at criminal charges for theft. They could end up in prison.
But no doubt how good you are dodging, if you have a shrewd and intelligent interlocutor like Senator Warren you are not going to make it anywhere with your dodging. A good interlocutor knows you are dodging and you can destroy your entire credibility by dodging because you expose yourself to the public.
No wonder Mr John Stumpf was forced to resign from the Federal Reserve Board after the Senate Bank Hearings. Can he still keep dodging the truth?
Connect with me on twitter
Advanced Engineer for Stellantis
8 年this helped me a lot about understanding how can I manage my dialog with an interviewer, and to know know when to keep dodging and when to just answer a question; basically most of the questions are easy to dodge if you know the topic and if you know how to lie (mostly).
Growing people who grow brands
8 年Your question at the end of your post is an easy one to dodge. The truth is never out there till you tell them that it's out there. ;-)
Strategy | Corporate Marketing | Product Marketing | Marketing Management | Director | Communication | Cybersecurity
8 年He could have denied the editorializing in each question and then answered it,, or restated back the core question, and answered that, or just answered the question. He didn't.
broadcast engineer & journalist | coder | Past SMPTE VR/AR Study Group Secretary & TLX Drafting Group Chair
8 年Cross-examination need not mean angry examination. Elizabeth Warren is great with ridicule, derision and is always close to high dudgeon. That might be entertaining, but it largely results in the questions being more important than the answers. Call it for what it is: stumping. Congress folk that have worked as prosecutors are more likely to end up with better answers than the rest of their colleagues.
CEO, RPA2AI Research | Author & Columnist | Visiting Professor
8 年Hi - Good illustration of dodges. But as of this comment, Stumpf has not resigned as CEO of Wells. He just stepped down from a committee that advises the US Fed. Kashyap