Stop Overexplaining at Work: The Three-Beat Answer

Lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are approximate.

00:00The most common executive presence problem that I see in genuinely competent people has nothing to do with arrogance, and it has nothing to do with nerves. It is the sentence that comes right after the answer.

Let me explain what I mean. First, my name is Ramona Shaw and I am the host of The Manager Track Podcast.

Here is what I mean by this. Someone asks you a question and you answer it, and it is a good answer. And then you keep going. You add the reasoning, the context, the caveat, and the option you considered and did not pick.

00:01All of that is accurate. Together, they tell the room something you never actually intended to say, which is that you are not settled on your own answer. You have to go deeper and explain more, and that first sentence or two was not enough for some reason. That is coming at a cost to your executive presence.

I want to explain where people get this wrong. We assume that the people listening are evaluating our reasoning in real time. They are not, and they cannot. They do not have the same context that we do, and it is usually moving too fast to judge that.

00:02What they can evaluate instantly is how finished and confident you sound. And the length of your response is a really easy signal. So again, nobody is grading your reasoning in real time. They are grading how settled you sound.

There is research going back decades on this. Bonnie Erickson and her colleagues ran a study in 1978 in a courtroom setting, and they found that testimony loaded with hedges and hesitations and questioning intonation was rated as less credible than the exact same testimony delivered directly. Same substance, different packaging, and that led to a different verdict on the speaker.

00:03So in the next 10 minutes I will give you the difference between explaining and justifying, the three-beat answer, plus a quick protocol to use for people who use questions deliberately to either challenge you or destabilize you. And we are going to talk about one shift at the end that a lot of leaders quietly resist.

Let us go back to that answer. Explaining is what you do when somebody asks for your reasoning. Give me your thought process here. They basically wanted the thinking and you gave it to them, and it lands as expertise. That is reasoning.

00:04Justifying is what you do when people have not asked. It is a tax that you volunteered to pay, and what it says is that you believe your decision or your opinion needs defending in order to survive.

Reasoning and justifying can sound very similar, but they are not the same. The difference is the underlying trigger. People feel that trigger even if they cannot really name it or they have a hard time explaining why. It is an instinctual feeling that we get when someone reasons versus when someone justifies.

00:05Let me give you an example. Say a client of mine has just picked a vendor, and her boss asks her in a totally neutral tone, “Why did you go with that second one?”

That could be a very simple one-sentence answer. But in this case, what she gave him was about 90 seconds. The evaluation criteria. The scoring model. The first vendor and its strengths, listed generously and elaborately, because she did not want to seem dismissive of the question.

00:06She might have also talked about the pricing analysis, the reference calls made, the concern that came up about the implementation timeline, and why that concern was resolved, and so on. I am pretty certain you get it.

Her intent there was thoroughness. But what her boss walked away with was a question, and that question was, “Is she sure about this?” He was not doubting the decision when he asked. He was doubting it by the end of all that explanation and thoroughness and detail about why she ended up with option two.

00:07And the only new information in that window was 90 seconds of her voice giving more detail than was needed.

The reset, obviously, is not just to say it faster. The reset is treating your answer as complete and letting the other person ask you for more. For example: they had a better implementation team, and their references were the difference. That is the whole answer. That was less than 20 words.

00:08If the manager wants the scoring model, they will ask for it, and now you give it as an expert rather than as somebody who is justifying and defending their decision.

And when you can feel the pull to keep going, here is your clean exit. If you find yourself thinking, “Oh, I gave a short answer, but I have the urge to keep going and explain more and more,” here is what you say instead. “That is the short version. Tell me which part you want me to open up or dig deeper into.”

Now, the behavior that costs you the most authority here is answering the question you were afraid they would ask instead of the one they actually asked.

00:09So you start to defend a decision nobody attacked. You volunteer information no one needed, and with that you introduce a doubt into the room that was not there before you first started speaking.

What happens often is that in that moment, in that justification, the other person, often the senior leader or manager, gets that instinct of, “Hmm, I am not sure.” And when they feel like you are not 100 percent confident, now they start to worry, because if you are their direct report, they are responsible for you.

And so what do they do? They dig deeper into it, and now you are going to spend the rest of that conversation clearing up something that you brought in yourself. You opened the door for that.

00:10Explaining is a gift you give when asked. Justifying is a tax you pay when nobody charged you.

By the way, if what we are talking about here, and how you communicate under tricky questions when the pressure is on, is landing for you, and you realize you do not always land the point well or show your true conviction or demonstrate how well you think about this, then also check out last week's episode of The Manager Track Podcast, when we talked about the update trap.

00:11Now, let us talk about the three-beat answer. Three beats, and it is the third one that we do not want to skip here.

Beat one is the answer. The first thing out of your mouth is the conclusion, not the process. If your first sentence starts with background, you already gave the beat away. In this case with the vendor: we are going with the second vendor. That is it. That was beat one.

00:12Beat two is one reason. One reason reads as a decision. Three reasons read as a case being built, and a case being built means we are still justifying.

So pick the reason that ultimately drove the call, not the one that is easiest to defend. In this case, their implementation team is materially stronger. We know that there is not just one factor, and so does this leader. But you leading with the one main thing is what demonstrates conviction.

And of course you can always add, “There are a few other things that led to this. Happy to elaborate.” You make the point that there is more, and you wait for them to ask.

00:13Beat three is stop. Silence after an answer is a status signal. I know that sounds contradicting, and it sounds like a weird thing to call a beat. But I have to call it a beat, because if we do not, and we leave it open, if this is a two-beat framework, most people will continue to go on and on and on after they gave that reason in beat two. So no, there needs to be a pause.

00:14Leaving that pause and creating that pause is a request for a reaction. And the person who can sit in, let us say, three seconds of quiet while somebody else forms an opinion of what they just heard is the most senior person in that exchange, perceptively, almost every time.

And when I say senior, I do not mean title. I mean senior on the topic or the matter of expertise.

So count two full seconds before you say anything else. If they are still quiet, just hold it. They are thinking, which is what you actually wanted. You do not need to defend and jump in and talk more unless they ask for it.

00:15If they are not coming back, you can always say, “Is there something here that you want me to elaborate on?” But again, you have to ask first before you dive deeper into it.

Some people use questions as a status instrument, and I see this over and over again. The tell is what I call the why ladder. Every answer you give produces another why, one level deeper, no matter how well you answered the last one. Why, why, why. And eventually you reach a level where you do not have a crisp, clear answer, and that moment is the entire point of the exercise.

So you are going to get about two circles around the why, and then you name the pattern. Naming the pattern here is taking back the frame, rather than going down that rabbit hole and stepping down that ladder into the deep end.

00:16Naming the pattern may feel uncomfortable, but it is not aggressive. It is actually a really calm thing to do. I want to give an example of what that sounds like.

“I have shared my reasoning twice, and I do not think explaining it a third time or from a different angle adds any more relevant information to it. What would actually help you decide, or feel more comfortable discussing the next steps?”

00:17So, the three-question check. Did they ask a question, or did they make a challenge? Those get different responses. Have I actually answered it in one sentence? Is this silence mine to fill?

00:18Be mindful here. In detecting that why ladder, it is important to distinguish between someone who actually needs to know the details and genuinely wants to understand, and someone who is using it to challenge you.

And this is not ill-intended. Many senior leaders see it as their job to listen to someone's recommendation or update and then see if they can poke some holes in it, to make sure the thought process is solid, that all the risks have been taken into account, and that the person has some sense of conviction and confidence in their plan of action.

That is often seen as their job. They are not intending to make you look bad. They are not intending to imply that you do not know what you are doing. They literally think that conversation is intended to challenge, in order to provide a sense of oversight and make sure that the decisions being made are well thought through.

00:19So do not take that personally, unless it is truly a personal attack. But when you notice someone is just asking why question after why question, that is when you want to regain the frame, because you realize it is actually not about the details. It is about poking and challenging.

So in that moment you say, “These are the two main reasons. I am happy to go into other aspects, but I think for us to move ahead and discuss next steps, those should be sufficient.”

If they come back and say, “Yes, okay, sure, but give me just one more thing,” that is totally fine, because they now realize you understood what was going on, you attempted to regain the frame, and you are now doing a bit of a dance about what should be answered so you can move forward.

00:20It is an effective communication skill. Do not let the emotions get in the way. Do not say it in a harsh tone. Do not come across as aggressive or defensive. Be open, stay curious, be pleasant in that moment, but also be clear that going down the why ladder is not getting us any further ahead.

With that said, I want to quickly pause. If what we are covering today is landing, and you are someone who wants to take this to the next level, I want to tell you about the Executive Presence Intensive.

00:21This is an eight-week program that we run for mid-level and senior leaders. The people who are already good at their work and who now need the room to read them as the person who can decide, who can lead, who can be in charge.

We go deep on exactly this kind of thing. What language to use under pressure. How to understand the psychology in the room. How to answer a hard question without getting defensive or moving into justification mode. How to hold silence instead of filling it. And how to handle being challenged in front of an audience without losing your composure.

00:22The groups are intentionally small, so you get direct feedback and you work with a set of peers who are in very similar situations. Together, through the program and a well-designed curriculum, you get better week over week, and you notice a significant improvement in your communication, your confidence, and your executive presence and presentation skills overall.

If this sounds interesting to you, check the show notes for a link to schedule a strategy call. In that call we will learn more about your situation, make sure this is actually the right program for you, answer any questions you might have, and then decide how to move forward.

00:23This program is not going to break your bank, nor will it take you away from your work for a massive amount of time. Our next cohort starts on September 28th. So if there is a bit of curiosity about whether this is the right fit for you, use the link in the description and schedule a call.

00:24Okay, now let us get back to the episode and talk about the actual shift. This is the part that a lot of people resist. Overexplaining is a bid for agreement in the room.

This is what the extra sentences we add on to our answer are actually chasing. It is not necessarily comprehension, although that is nice too. It is agreement. I want to make sure the other person fully understands, and with that, is on the same page. You want to walk out knowing the other person is on board, and every added sentence is one more attempt to close that door right before the meeting ends.

And that need, to be in agreement with someone else, to get their validation or approval, is human. It is also the specific thing that has to go. We have to let that need for agreement go in order to be more effective in our communication.

00:25When you talk somebody into a softened version of your decision, you have not been challenged. When we talk so much that all they can say is, “Okay, sure, sounds right,” and we do not really give them the space to object, then their disagreement was never voiced.

Maybe that sounds good in the moment, short term, but it is not good long term, because it will show up six weeks later as a slow no or a delay. And by then it is a lot more expensive to deal with.

00:26So the trade is really agreement now versus clarity later, when actually we want to have clarity now. So state the position, make disagreeing with you easy, invite that, and accept walking out without knowing exactly where you stand in terms of how much they agree with you or not. That discomfort is the price of real information.

You do not have to agree with me today. I would rather you disagree with the actual decision than agree with a softer version of it. If you talk someone into agreeing, you were not challenged. You were accommodated.

00:27Ultimately, if we talk someone into agreeing with us, our decision was not challenged. Instead they were just accommodating us. So the effort to talk more and more in order to be accommodated and be in at least artificial agreement for the moment is not helping. It will not make you more effective, nor will it help the work at hand.

So I am going to come right back to where we started. The power move here is a two-second rule, and it is the hardest small thing that I am sharing in this episode.

00:28As silly as this sounds: after you answer a question, the brief version, not the justification but the reasoning, count two full seconds before you add anything else. Do not fill it. Do not smile it away. Do not soften it with a little laugh or an um in between.

Know that it will feel longer than it is. Yes, it is uncomfortable. That feeling, though, is the point. Get more comfortable with the silence, because it is exactly that discomfort that is going to generate the extra sentence. If you are not accepting it, it is going to make you fill it with additional justifications left and right.

Most of the time, the other person is processing, and uses those two seconds to accept your answer and move on, or to ask a really good follow-up question. But then they are asking for it, versus you volunteering all that justification.

00:29In last week's episode we talked about reporting your judgment instead of your work. Go catch up on that episode if this lesson resonates with you today and you missed it last week. It is a very similar shift to what we are talking about here.

Every question that you get is a small moment where you either defend the work or stand behind the call. Defending comes from a place of feeling challenged, feeling like you need to explain why you did what you did because someone could question it or be in disagreement, and you do not want to tolerate that feeling, so you go on and on.

00:30By the way, sometimes we give way too much detail that is not relevant, and sometimes we literally say the same thing three times over.

A quick side note. I also too often see how someone on the team will make a point, say it once, then be quiet, and then the leader or the more senior person in the room repeats again what that more junior person just said, in an attempt to create more agreement, emphasize it, and get everyone on the same page. That, too, is ineffective. That, too, comes across as justification rather than reasoning that demonstrates, “I stand behind the call and I have conviction.”

00:31So here are a few questions to ask yourself honestly. One: when you add those additional sentences, who is it actually for? Is it truly for them, or is it for you, to make you feel better because you were able to share it all and therefore hopefully get more agreement?

Two: when was the last time you let somebody sit in silence while they formed an opinion of you? Not talking. Just silence.

00:32Three: when was the last time you recognized that you were justifying yourself and that it was not needed?

By the way, you could probably go through your sent emails, the last 20 or so, and just ask yourself, “Where in those emails am I justifying versus providing reasoning?”

It is sometimes small things that we add to explain why we were late, or to explain why we made a certain decision. No one asked for it. We are just elaborating on stuff that is fluff. In those emails we actually feel like we are being nice and kind by volunteering this information. It is actually diluting the message, and it comes across as us defending ourselves rather than fully owning it.

00:33If I say no, or I am going to be late, or I am not able to attend that call, do I have to say “because XYZ,” or am I just saying, “I will not be able to attend the call,” period? It is small things, but it is so habitual for us to justify in order to seek that sense of agreement.

So with that awareness, go through your emails, look at how often you do this, and going forward, try to clean that up.

If you got value from this, please subscribe either on the podcast app or over on our YouTube channel, wherever you are watching or hearing this. We put out a new episode for new managers and leaders who are climbing the ranks and moving into senior positions every single Tuesday, and we are doing a bit of a deep dive on executive presence this month as we lead up to the start of the Executive Presence Intensive.

00:34Next week we are going to go all in on the written version of this problem, which is what your Slack messages are saying about how senior you are when nobody can actually hear your tone of voice.

And with that, I hope you tune in next time. Bye for now.