In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions...When It Counts: How to Handle Tough Questions ...When It Counts

Jerry Weissman has made a career of coaching nearly 500 execs on their IPO roadshows, the most critical presentations of their lives. Now, he's written an indispensable guide to answering the toughest questions you'll ever face.  Using compelling examples from Presidential debates to stock analyst meetings, Weissman teaches how to respond with perfect assurance. Discover how to avoid the defensive, evasive, or  contentious answers that have destroyed political careers and ruin credibility. Learn to control your entire exchange with a hostile questioner: the question, answer, interactions with questioner and audience, timing, and above all, yourself. Whether an executive, politician, fundraiser, interviewee, teacher, student -- or even a family member at Thanksgiving dinner -- you're judged on how you handle these moments. Get this book: handle them brilliantly.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Agility versus Force.     Challenging Questions     Martial Arts     Effective Management Perceived     Baptism under Fire     Case Studies: Bill Clinton; David versus Goliath; Bruce Lee; David Bellet; Mike Wallace 1. The Critical Dynamics of Q&A.     Defensive, Evasive, or Contentious     Presenter Behavior/Audience Perception     Case Studies: The Classic Bob Newhart Episode; Trent Lott on Black Entertainment Television; Pedro Martinez; The NAFTA Debate; Two Weeks of an IPO Road show 2. Effective Management Implemented.     Worst Case Scenario     Maximum Control in Groups     The Q&A Cycle     How to Lose Your Audience in Five Seconds Flat 3. You're Not listening!     Case Studies: 1992, 2000, and 2004 U.S. Presidential Debates 4. Active Listening (Martial Art: Concentration).     The Roman Column     Sub-vocalization     Visual Listening     You Still Don't Understand     Yards After Catch     Case Study: 1992 U.S. Presidential Debate in Retrospect 5. Retake the Floor (Martial Art: Self-defense).     Paraphrase     Challenging Questions     The Buffer     Key Words     The Double Buffer     The Power of "You"     The Triple Fail-Safe     Case Study: Colin Powell 6. Provide the Answer (Martial Art: Balance).     Quid Pro Quo     Manage the Answer     Anticipate     Recognize the Universal Issues     How to Handle Special Questions     Guilty as Charged Questions     Point B and WIIFY     Topspin     Media Sound Bites     Case Studies: George W. Bush; John F. Kerry; George H. Bush Revisited 7. Topspin in Action (Martial Art: Agility).     Michael Dukakis Misses a Free Kick     The Evolution of George W. Bush     Lloyd Bentsen Topspins     Ronald Reagan Topspins 8. Preparation (Martial Art: Discipline).     Lessons Learned     Case Studies: John F. Kennedy versus Richard M. Nixon, Al Gore versus Ross Perot 9. The Art of War (Martial Art: Self-Control).     The Art of Agility     Force: 1992     Agility: 1996     Agility and Force: 2000     Agility and Force: 2004     The Critical Impact of Debates     Lessons Learned     Case Studies: Al Gore debates Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp, and George W. Bush; George W. Bush debates John F. Kerry; The Presidential Debates: 1960 through 2004 10. The Role Model.     Complete Control     Case Study: General Norman Schwarzkopf Endnotes. Acknowledgments. Index.

About the Author :
JERRY WEISSMAN, the world's #1 corporate presentations coach, founded and leads Power Presentations, Ltd. in Foster City, CA. His private clients include executives at hundreds of the world's top companies, including Yahoo!, Intel, Cisco Systems, Intuit, Dolby Laboratories, and Microsoft. Weissman coached Cisco's executives before their immensely successful IPO road show; afterward, the firm's chairman attributed at least two to three dollars of Cisco's offering price to Weissman's work. Since then, he has prepared executives for nearly 500 IPO road shows, helping them raise hundreds of billions of dollars. Weissman is author of the global bestseller Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003). In this book, you'll find many examples of Q&A sessions and political debates in the public arena. The original videos of these sessions are available on a DVD that you can obtain by visiting www.powerltd.com. © Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.