On 2 May 2018, Elon Musk was taking questions on Tesla’s quarterly earnings call. Toni Sacconaghi, a senior analyst at Bernstein, asked where the company would be on capital requirements. Tesla had just burned through more than a billion dollars in a quarter, so it was a reasonable thing to ask.
Musk cut across him.
“Next. Boring, bonehead questions are not cool.”
A few minutes later, an analyst from RBC asked how many people who had reserved a Model 3 were going on to configure one. “Sorry,” Musk said, “these questions are so dry.” He turned instead to a YouTuber who ran a channel about Tesla.
The next day, Tesla’s shares closed 5.6% down. Sacconaghi went on Bloomberg Television to say it was a worry when a chief executive seemed unwilling to talk about the financials. Three months later, on the next call, Musk apologised for being impolite (a long wait, as apologies go).
To be fair to him, he had his reasons. He said afterwards that the capital question was already answered in the shareholder letter, and that both analysts were building a case against the stock. Not all of the fall was down to his manner, either: the results raised real worries about cash. But the analysts asked about money, and the story became his manners.
So what makes a few words cost that much?
What the people watching are judging
In 2020, Dongwon Yun, Heajung Jung and Kelly Ashihara gave 296 people a short account of a leader dealing with a provoking situation and asked them to rate the leader. The situation was identical every time. Only the reaction changed. In one version the leader stayed calm. In the others the leader showed anger, at one of two strengths.
The calm leader was rated 4.92 out of seven for effectiveness. The leader who snapped and frowned scored 3.55. The leader who yelled and stomped scored 3.89.
This is the part I would want you to remember:
Snapping and frowning costs you as much as shouting.
When Timothy Judge and three colleagues analysed leadership traits and their impact on their teams, the tendency to be anxious and reactive was negatively related to leadership (with a correlation of minus .24), and the pattern held across the settings they examined.
Shouting gets noticed, and usually someone deals with it. The snap gets missed, most of all by the person doing it, because it feels like being firm.
By the end of this article, you will have four rules for the sentence that follows a challenge, and a version for when the stakes go up.
Four ‘reaction’ rules
The rules apply to one sentence only: the first thing you say after someone challenges you in front of others. Everything after it is easier if that one goes well.
Slower and quieter than they were.
Short enough to say in one breath.
Answer their point, not their tone.
If you cannot answer yet, give a time.
The first rule uses the other person as your reference. Listen to their pace and volume, and come in under both. Your voice is the first thing to go under pressure: the pitch rises and the pace picks up before you have decided anything. Lowering your voice is something you can do before you feel calm. It is mechanical, which is why it is useful. People watching read it as composure.
The second rule is about length. The longer the first sentence, the more of it goes on defending yourself. That’s a fair challenge is a whole sentence. So is Let me take the cost point first.
The third rule asks you to separate what was said from how it was said. A challenge often comes with both, and the manner is usually what stings. Answer the substance. If the manner needs addressing, do it later and privately, if you have decided it is worth it.
The fourth rule is for the moment you have no answer, which is the moment it is tempting to bluff. Do not. Say this:
“I don’t have a good answer to that yet. I’ll come back to you by four o’clock.”
Then come back at four. Time is bought only if you keep the deadline.
What to tell yourself while you say it
The rules control what people see. On their own, they do nothing for what you feel.
In 1998, the Stanford psychologist James Gross showed 120 people an unpleasant film while recording their reactions. Some were asked to hide what they felt. Others were asked to think about the film differently, so that it affected them less. Both groups showed less on their faces. Only the second group actually felt less. The group hiding their reaction showed more physical arousal.
Hiding your reaction keeps it from others without making you any calmer.
So while you are lowering your voice, change what the challenge means to you. Something like this:
“They are testing the plan. That is their job.”
It turns a challenge to you into a question about the work, which is something you can answer.
The framework adds one thing you can do in advance. If you have come out of a hard conversation just before a meeting, tell the team in one sentence what the pressure is and what it means for them. Then nobody has to guess why you are being short.
When the stakes go up
The rules hold when the challenger is your boss or a board member. What changes is the temptation.
My sense is that we snap downwards and over-explain upwards. Challenged by someone senior, the instinct is to defend every number at length, which is the same loss of composure, only more polite. With someone senior, the usual risk is over-explaining. The second rule matters most here. Concede the weakest point first and briefly:
“That’s a fair challenge. The cost figure is the weakest part of the case, and I’ll have a firmer one to you by Thursday.”
Sometimes the first sentence goes well, and they come back harder. Run the same four rules on your second sentence. Do not repeat your answer louder. Name the disagreement and give it a time:
“I think we see this differently. Let me bring the numbers on Thursday, and you can test them properly.”
You might be thinking, “If someone pushes twice and I stay soft, I look weak.”
Of course, some moments call for firmness. But firmness comes from what you say. You can say no calmly.
Four ways capable people get this wrong
The comeback. Someone makes a sharp point, and you answer the sharpness with something sharper. It feels like winning. The point they made goes unanswered.
The polite put-down. The words are courteous, and the voice is level, but the sentence has a barb in it. I’m sure that’s how it looks from where you sit. I suspect people hear this much like a snap.
“Let’s take it offline.” Sometimes this is the right call. Without a time attached, it is a refusal.
The quiet score-settle. You are calm in the meeting and short with that person for a fortnight afterwards. It does not feel like losing composure, which is why it goes unnoticed. To the person on the receiving end, it is the same snap spread over two weeks.
The call, played back
Go back to Musk and the capital question, and run it through the rules.
The first rule would have meant letting Sacconaghi finish and answering at his pace. The second would have kept it to one breath. The third is the interesting one. There was no hostile tone to ignore; it was a routine question asked in the ordinary way. The irritation was Musk’s own. The fourth would have pointed to where the answer was.
Something like this:
“Fair question. We don’t expect to raise capital this year, and the detail is in the letter. I’m happy to go through it after the call.”
The first half of that sentence is what Musk himself told the call: no new equity or debt that year. He had a reassuring answer, and the analyst got an insult instead. The reassurance was lost in the headlines about bonehead questions.
Try it before your next difficult meeting
Think back to the last time someone challenged you in front of others. Write down your first sentence, as close to the actual words as you can manage.
Then ask yourself one question:
Would you have said it the same way if your roles were reversed?
It works in both directions. If they were junior, would you have spoken to your boss like that? If they were senior, would you have explained at that length to someone who works for you? If the answer is no, rewrite the sentence using the four rules, and read the new version aloud.
How sure am I? The evidence that the snap costs you is reasonable, and it points the same way as the wider research on steadiness. The four rules are my arrangement of practices that are widely used and consistent with that research. Nobody has tested this particular routine, and I would change it if something better came along. What I can say is that four short rules are few enough to remember while your pulse is up.
Once the rules feel natural, go one step further. Ask two people who see you under pressure what your tell is: the phrase, the gesture, the change in pace. Then watch for it yourself.
For now, write that sentence down before your next meeting.
Take this away
The rules: After a challenge, make your first sentence slower and quieter than they were, short enough for one breath, and about their point rather than their tone. If you have no answer yet, give a time.
Ask: “Would I have said it the same way if our roles were reversed?”
Do this week: Write down your first sentence from the last time you were challenged, and rewrite it.